Meghan Fredrich, a former East Village resident who is currently living in Massachusetts, shared her first short film with me. "Deborah Harry Does Not Like Interviews," created from archival footage, shows how Blondie's Debbie Harry "endures years of superficial, tedious and demeaning questions from journalists until she devises a brilliant way to turn interviews on their head." The short recently made its premiere at the Maryland Film Festival and is now currently online.
Fredrich answered a few questions about the film, which you can watch below...
What was your introduction to Blondie? Do you recall the first time that you heard a Blondie song?
I’m a millennial (so sorry) and was a kid in the 1980s and 1990s. I have vague memories of seeing "Heart of Glass" and "Rapture" music videos on MTV or VH1.
Were you instantly a fan?
I think like so many others I was immediately entranced. My childhood home was a sort of New Wave temple – my parents playing records of the Talking Heads and B-52s. As I got older and developed a more complete understanding of punk, I became deeply involved with Blondie and never looked back.
What are some of the qualities that intrigued you initially about Debbie Harry? Did these perceptions change at all during the making of the film?
Debbie is unequivocally charismatic, so I think that drew my initial interest. But Debbie always appeared to me to be a very substantial person. Despite the ongoing media obsession with her blondeness and appearance, she is not all on the surface or superficial in any way. And she always appealed to me as a truly modern woman — an independent spirit.
I knew these things about her before I began the film, but I think my appreciation of her integrity, cleverness and sense of humor deepened as I worked on it.
Did you start this project with Debbie Harry in mind? Or were you thinking more about exploring the way interviews are structured and how the media complex works?
It was the latter – I was thinking about the power relationship inherent in interviews and how the public accepts certain interview “norms.” From there I thought about who had been in the public eye for a long time, and Debbie came to mind.
Though the montage of clips you found, we see Harry endure an endless number of idiotic and sexist interviews. How did you see her reaction to these interviews evolve as she continued on in her career, both in Blondie and as a solo artist and actress?
As time goes by, we Debbie’s emotional reactions to these questions and interviews change, as well as the strategies or tactics she deploys to manage them. She’s initially surprised, perhaps. Then expectant, evasive, using humor to deflect. She tries presenting a somewhat neutral front. Toward the end, you see flickers of anger, frustration and resignation. Until Minkie appears.
I’m surprised that the introduction of a stuffed animal — in this case Minkie — during interviews hasn’t become standard media-training fare for any public figure.
I know what you mean!
Do you think if she was an emerging artist today that she’d face the same type of questioning in the media?
You can see this clearly happening now with Billie Ellish. In an ad campaign recently for Calvin Klein, Billie says, “That’s why I wear baggy clothes. Nobody can have an opinion because they haven’t seen what’s underneath.” It’s a protective stance for an invasive world that would otherwise eat you alive.
Any idea if Deborah Harry has seen this?
We passed the film along to her people, but I don’t really know one way or another.
What do you want viewers to take away from the film?
How incredible Debbie is, to start! I hope they laugh while the watch it. But perhaps the overriding message of the piece comes from the lyrics of the song "I Want That Man." When Debbie sings “Here comes the 21st century/It’s gonna be much better for a girl like me,” we as the audience now watching in the 21st century have to ask ourselves: Is it?
"Streit’s: Matzo and the American Dream," the 2016 documentary by East Village-based filmmaker Michael Levine, is out this week on DVD ... in addition, nearly two dozen PBS affiliate stations around the country, including New York’s flagship WNET, are screening "Streit's" throughout the rest of April and the beginning of May to coincide with Passover. (Details below.)
The documentary, which enjoyed a three-week run at the Film Forum in 2016, follows the last family-owned matzo bakery in America during their final year in their factory on Rivington Street. The factory moved out of the Lower East Side in 2015 after 90 years in that location.
The family sold its original factory to Cogswell Realty in January 2015 for a reported $30.5 million. A pricy glass box is now in its place on Rivington and Suffolk.
[Image by Leo London/Flickr]
Levine talked to me about the DVD release and his continued relationship with the Streit family.
What's your reaction to the DVD coming out at long last combined with the PBS screenings?
Well, it's very exciting, of course, and overwhelming, too.
When I first began work on this film at the start of 2013, I had no idea where it would end up. I had big hopes for it, because I believed then, as I do now, that the stories of the Streit family and staff, and their connections to the Lower East Side community and immigrant history, were ones that needed to be heard. And when the Streit family ended up, during the film's production, making the extraordinarily difficult but sadly necessary decision to leave the neighborhood after a full century, the story of course took on an additional, unexpected dimension.
But, as a documentary filmmaker, you never know if your project will see the light of day, which is in large part to say that you never know if the story you personally find so important will resonate with others the same way.
The fact that the film has ended up getting so much exposure, from the festival circuit, to theatrical, and now to screening on PBS, means to me that it has resonated with people, which as someone who cares strongly about this neighborhood and deeply respects the way Streit's has run their business for 100 years, means a lot.
And the DVD coming out is exciting, too. We had to cut the film down a bit to fit time slot constraints for PBS, so the DVD offers a way of being able to share the full 83-minute version that ran in theaters. Plus, we were able to include bonus features, like 18 minutes of film dating back to the 1940s that we found in the closet at the old Streit's factory on Rivington Street — just amazing stuff from a historical/cultural perspective that would likely never be seen otherwise.
It's also great getting emails, as we have, from younger people who want to buy the DVD for their grandparents because they know they grew up with Streit's, or from grandparents who want to buy it for their grandkids to help pass on that legacy. It's been fulfilling to see people connecting with a story that means a lot to me.
Are you still in contact with any of the family members? Do you still feel a connection to them?
Absolutely! There was never any thought that we'd lose touch once they left the neighborhood.
First, they still love the Lower East Side — it just got to a point where, because of a combination of overseas competition from non-union producers, plus the failure of NYC to offer them any incentives to stay, they were left with the option of sticking around a few more years and likely going out of business, or finding a way to keep the company going elsewhere.
The fact that they decided to relocate within commuting distance for most of their long-time employees speaks to the ethic of loyalty that drew me to their story in the first place.
In my mind, the loss of their presence in the neighborhood is a tremendous one, but I know they still feel a connection to the neighborhood, and I still feel a connection to them, and to all the workers there.
Their location on Rivington Street was iconic, that's for sure, but it's the people who have run the business and who work there, and their humanity and ethics that make their story extraordinary, and all of that has traveled with them up to Rockland County, N.Y., where their factory is operating now. I've been to the new factory a few times, and the machinery may be newer, but there are a lot of familiar faces, which is great to see.
Have you seen the almost-completed condoplex that took the place of Streit's?
To be honest, I've seen pictures of it, and caught glimpses of it from a distance, but I haven't been able to bring myself to actually walk on that block since the factory was demolished. I'm sure at some point I will, but I'm just not there yet.
And honestly, one of the things I fear most about it is something that I've experienced passing by any number of locations where iconic buildings or businesses have disappeared, which isn't a sense of loss — that you can feel from the comfort of home — it's the lack of a feeling of loss, or a feeling of anything for that matter, because what has replaced it bears no resemblance to what was there before.
It's not that you ever forget a place like Streit's — I can conjure up the feeling of walking through that building, the sounds of the old machinery, the smell of fresh matzo baking, anytime I like. It's that standing in the place where it was does nothing to remind you of any of those things because all markers of its existence have been erased.
In some way, maybe it's for the best, at least psychologically, because so many of the places that meant something to me in this neighborhood have disappeared, if I had experience the true weight of their loss every time I passed by their former location, I don't think I'd make it down the street!
But when it comes down to it, honestly I think it's dangerous in an insidious way, because it can lead to forgetting how much we have lost and how much we have to lose if we don't take action to keep these kinds of places around. It's one of the reasons I'm so thankful to have been able to shoot this film when I did — so that it can hopefully act as a reminder, as a sort of counterweight to the numbness of walking past a glass-cladded condoplex.
What's your next project?
Well, even though the film has been released, I believe there's still more of the story to tell, because we had to finish filming before the new factory opened. So, for one thing, I plan to do some additional shooting up there, and find a way of offering people a look at where the Streit's story has gone since the film was completed.
Also, when Streit's left Rivington Street, they brought practically everything from the old factory with them, with the intention of devoting a portion of the new factory to a museum, which would include much of their old machinery from Rivington Street in working order. They've asked me to be a part of helping put that space together, and I'm extremely grateful and excited for that opportunity.
As far as the next film, that I'm still figuring out. I've some ideas, and it's just a matter of feeling them out to see what's going to work — and finding funding, of course! This neighborhood and this city have a lot of important stories to tell, and I hope to have the opportunity to document more of them.
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The PBS program includes a one-hour version of the film, plus new interviews conducted by PBS with Streit family members. With a multi-year deal in place, Levine said that it appears the film will become an annual Passover tradition on PBS.
The special airs tonight on WNET at 10:30, and again early Sunday at 2:30 a.m. Find all showtimes at this link.
The DVD includes 25 minutes of bonus features, including footage shot at the Streit’s factory on Rivington Street in the 1940s.
"Curiosities" is a new book of photos by local photographer Dan Efram. (His work has appeared on EVG, such as here ... here ... and here.) There's a book launch tomorrow night at Howl! Happening (details below). Ahead of that, I asked Efram a few questions about his work...
How did your passion for photography come about?
Succinctly, it helped me get through the illnesses and eventual deaths of my parents.
Growing up my dad was always documenting via snapshot, so a camera was constantly nearby. Though I was interested early, I was a fan of the camera as a gadget. In fact, I still own my dad’s Praktica camera with its manual winding — it had lots of cool buttons and a really loud shutter, which I was fascinated with.
My first career was as an artist manager in the music business, and luckily was constantly around creative types and photographers specifically. Often, I feel like some of the photo smarts of my crew rubbed off on me. In essence, I’ve been searching for the perfect album cover my whole life, now I’m just actually making the pictures as well.
What does it take to catch your eye? What do you look for on the street?
I love weird, dark and emotive. Arbus, Weegee, Brassaï, Winnogrand and Frank are staples for a lot of street photographers and these are definitely some of my faves as well.
Recently, I’ve been fascinated by Richard Sandler’s amazing book “The Eyes of the City,” to which I highly recommend. His work is mind-blowingly great! But, I digress. First off and this may seem obvious, but if I’m not in the correct frame of mind, nothing happens. But I’m generally looking for something that either is completely unusual that’s happening or something completely normal that allows me to focus in on a personality.
Your book features characters from Spain, Portugal, France, Cuba and the United States. Closer to home, what kind of canvas does the East Village provide for your photography?
There are a number of photos from the East Village in my book that I love for their grittiness. It’s my home and where I feel most comfortable, so walking these streets in my neighborhood allows me to shoot without trepidation.
It's also inspiring, because once you’ve been somewhere this long, in my case 25 years, my history is implanted in the miles I’ve walked in these neighborhoods. But comfort isn’t always the best thing for art and I very much enjoy getting out the comfort zone as often as possible. A challenge is exciting! And I’m looking to do a lot more of this in the future.
[A self-portrait]
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An Evening with Daniel Efram’s "Curiosities"
Wednesday, April 17, 7 p.m.
Howl! Happening, 6 E. First St. between Second Avenue and the Bowery.
Efram’s "Curiosities" are augmented by neo-noir experimental soundscapes from Jim Coleman (This Wilderness, Gain Control, Cop Shoot Cop) and Sarah Register (War Bubble, Talk Normal). Reading from her own work and a collection of other sources, Nicole Blackman (Golden Palominos, Recoil, KMFDM) and actor/screenwriter Tony Drazan (director of "Hurlyburly" and "Zebrahead") give voice to the anonymous pedestrians, street vendors, nightcrawlers, and characters ... Jubilant drum corps Nossos Tambores opens the evening.
After helping launch Gothamist in 2003, co-founder and native New Yorker Jake Dobkin enjoyed answering questions and offering advice (often unsolicited!) about NYC to staffers who recently arrived here.
Eventually, Editor-in-Chief John Del Signore suggested that Dobkin, a third-generation New Yorker who grew up in Park Slope, share his humorous and opinionated perspective to readers who may have questions about adjusting to the NYC way of life or to longtime residents looking for a unique point of view.
And so, in the summer of 2013, Dobkin wrote his first "Ask a Native New Yorker" for the news site, tackling a topic that people may wonder about but couldn't find an answer to: "Is It Normal For Roaches To Crawl Through My Hair At Night?"
Now, after 150 columns — addressing questions ranging from "Should I Wash My Hands After Taking The Subway?" to "When Should I Call The Cops On My New Neighbors?" — the series has been turned into a book. I recently asked Dobkin a few questions about "Ask a Native New Yorker."
You've written some 150 "Ask a Native New Yorker" posts for Gothamist. However, the book isn't a repackaging of those. What can readers expect to find in this volume?
I wanted to start from scratch here and really create a volume of advice that could guide a New Yorker from birth until death. I thought a lot of the original columns on the web were pretty good, but they were written under the usual blogging time constraints.
For the book. I had a lot more time and so I think the answers are a lot more thoughtful, and hopefully more amusing. Turns out banging out eight blog posts a day ain't the best way to create quality writing!
In the book, you write that to be considered a native New Yorker, you must have, for starters, been born in one of the five boroughs. What are your feelings about people who say they are a native New Yorker — they just grew up a quick LIRR ride away in, oh, Valley Stream?
I feel bad for these people, because the truth always comes out, and then they look like real chumps. Listen, I grew up in Park Slope — it's not exactly the most hardcore neighborhood in New York, and so I understand why someone might want to shade the truth on their origin story. In college I used to tell people I grew up in South Brooklyn or something.
But ultimately to achieve wisdom you must be honest with the world and yourself about who you are and where you come from, and anyway, it could be worse — you could be from Jersey!
Do you allow for any wiggle room for iconic figures from the city's past or present — people who made an impression on NYC's culture and history though they weren't born here and hence not native New Yorkers? People such as Mickey Mantle, Andy Warhol, Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, Patrick Ewing, Debbie Harry and Patti Smith to randomly name six...
Newcomers, immigrants and refugees from the suburbs all contribute to the wonderful tossed-salad that is NYC culture — I'd never denigrate anyone who took the extreme act of courage it takes to move here. That said, I think it's fair to say that natives have a different, and valuable point of view, that is too often overlooked, and which I hope the book shines a light on.
You went to school at Columbia. At the time while making your collegiate choice, did it occur to you that attending, say, Brown or Dartmouth, would have watered down your native New Yorker status by being away for four years?
I was raised by hippie radical communists in Park Slope, whose style of parenting was to avoid parenting as much as possible. So when it came to applying to college I was pretty much on my own.
Stuyvesant High School in those days had about one college counselor for every 950 kids, so there wasn't much advice there either — it was pretty much "don't forget to apply to college!" So I was actually totally unaware Columbia existed until after I graduated from high school — basically everything above 14th Street was like one of those old maps where the far north is labelled "there be dragons."
So I didn't apply there, and actually got rejected by every school except Dartmouth and Binghamton. Now, I knew I couldn't go to Dartmouth, because I had a feeling my whole sarcastic Jew schtick wouldn't play well in New Hampshire. So I ended up going to SUNY Binghamton for 12 weeks, and then dropping out, and at that point, finally, someone suggested I check out Columbia, and I did. It was like I discovered El Dorado — an amazing lost city of gold.
So I wish I could say my college choice was the product of my New York Native realness, but it was actually just a kind of ridiculous stumbling ass-backwards into a situation that worked for me. The moral of the story is I'm not letting my kids apply to any school you can't get to on NYC public transit. Maybe I'd make an exception for Rutgers or something.
The book provides a lot of helpful tips for people new to the city. Do you have any specific advice for residents who are new to the East Village?
I remember when I first got to Stuy, back in 1990 — I was 13, and in those days it was on 15th and 1st, just outside the East Village. Everything south was this giant mystery which took me years to unravel. I actually think the first time I walked down St. Mark's I was 20 years old! But since then I've developed tons of favorite spots, none particularly original — Veselka, Sobaya, 7B, etc.
One of the best secret spots in all of NYC — the New York Marble Cemetery off Second Avenue — I love going in there whenever the gate is open.
Do you still believe — as you write — that New York is the greatest city in the world? You finished this book before Hudson Yards opened.
New York is the greatest city the world has ever seen, and probably will ever see, since between climate change and our current politics, the human race doesn't seem like it has so much time left.
You can't let things like Hudson Yards bother you too much — New York has always changed at a blistering pace, and somehow we always turn out OK. I was up there [the other day] shooting the Shed, and I saw like four hot-dog carts already colonizing the edges of the site. I have no doubt in 10 or 20 years the place will be totally over-run with real New York chaos.
On Jan. 16, Cheska Mauban, a Queens native and recent Babson College graduate, opened her namesake pizzeria in The Bowery Market.
Cheska's pizza has a gluten-free and vegan crust — one made from cauliflower and the other sweet potato. (Find her menu here.)
Several EVG readers had heard about how Mauban launched her small business, and shared the news of her entrepreneurial skills. I reached out to ask a few questions about starting the business, which involved spending months testing her recipes on friends and family.
How did Cheska's pizza come about? What were you doing as a career at the time?
I think it was a Saturday in March last year that I was sipping on an afternoon latte at my local coffee shop while reading Ina Yalof's "Food and the City," which is a compilation of short stories from anyone to everyone working in the New York City food scene, from The Halal Guys to James Beard chefs.
Growing up in NYC, I've always been fascinated with the dynamic food scene and like any New Yorker, I took full advantage of it and now I wanted to take a deeper behind-the-scenes look. Fortunately, for lunch that day, I bought a frozen cauliflower crust pizza from my local grocery store and threw it in the oven after dousing it with sauce and cheese.
So, while going from short story to the next, I kept thinking about my lunch and where I could get this healthier option without having to put it in the oven myself. I did some light research and couldn't find any options.
From here, my entrepreneurial juices started flowing, because I remembered that for the past two weeks I spoke with associates at the grocery store about re-stocking the cauliflower crust shelves because they were empty! Not only did I graduate from Babson College, the nation's top school for entrepreneurship, but I also currently worked at a financial technology startup that constantly challenged me to think creatively.
Piecing the puzzle together, I came to the conclusion that NYC needs a place to serve cauliflower crust pizzas for takeout. For the next couple of months, I spent my evenings and weekends running through 100 different recipes to nail down the perfect combination to maintain 1.5 servings of cauliflower, but to also make sure it can hold like a pizza.
For anyone who has ventured through this rabbit hole of making cauliflower crust at home... you know the struggle of admitting defeat to a mushy pizza. Along the way, I decided that there needed to be some variety, so after another 100 iterations, the sweet potato crust was created.
What kind of culinary background did you have?
Full disclosure — I had zero culinary training. But what made up for it were my countless meals across diverse cuisines throughout the five boroughs: my palette was at least well-trained.
However, I looked to a close college friend, Chris Quach, who's an aspiring chef with the Altamarea Group for some free advice on flavor profile and devising my menu.
For a few months, I held private tastings with family and friends and gathered feedback. From there, the crusts changed a bit more and so did the sauce. I also decided to offer a fully gluten-free menu, because I learned that no other pizzerias were strictly gluten-free. That decision was another avenue to show our community of health forward eaters that delicious food is possible for any person, no matter the dietary restriction.
Why did you decide on The Bowery Market to open your business?
We specifically chose The Bowery Market for two reasons. One, it's a charming open-air market with blossoming roses and it sits on the corner of an iconic street.
And two, the "cozy" — euphemism for "small" — kiosk allowed for a relatively easy build-out, which subsequently led to the quickest launch possible. This way, we can dive into proving the food concept even more and also ironing out all the business kinks. Because of my Babson education, I learned to adopt the mantra "fail fast."
There are [also] so many great family-run restaurant supply stores on the Bowery. Whenever we need anything it's a hop and skip away to some friendly faces who have it.
To date, what has been the most challenging part of launching your business? The most rewarding part?
This is the first time I'm ever starting my own restaurant and it's from a very clean slate. Even though I have tons of mentors, consultants, supporters and an awesome crew managing daily operations, I have no co-founders to divide the burden of responsibilities.
All the pressure sits on my shoulders, which is both the biggest challenge AND also the most rewarding part. On lonely days, it seems like no one else can possibly understand the struggle and anxiety I face with even the smallest decision of which plastic take-out bags to order. And on great days, the tiniest win of a customer explaining how our pizzas are perfect for his keto lifestyle and grabbing a menu for later, gives me a massive boost of energy and motivation.
What are your long-term plans for Cheska's?
The Bowery Market location is certainly just the beginning. Every day of operation is laying down one more brick in the foundation for a bigger vision of inspiring healthier habits through nutritious food all across New York and beyond. We're learning everything there is to learn about running a restaurant at a fast pace and when the weather turns, we'll assess where Cheska's second location will be.
In this business, we're also learning that nothing is set in stone and that we need to be nimble, so we have a repository of ideas that we keep from customer and mentor feedback. For example, customers have asked us if we sell my pizzas frozen and ready to pop in the oven themselves. It's a far ways out to think about doing that, but hey, you never know.
Longtime friends Mike Katz and Crispin Kott, both obsessive music fans and history buffs (and at least one is a self-described failed drummer), channeled their love of rock & roll and NYC into a new book titled "Rock and Roll Explorer Guide to New York City."
The book, via publisher Globe Pequot, provides a five-borough look "at how bands came together, scenes developed and classic songs were written."
I asked Katz and Kott a few questions via email about the book and what readers can expect...
How did the idea for this book come about?
Katz: We’ve known each other for 25 years and share a deep fascination not only with music, but with its history. We also share an appreciation for the cultural uniqueness of New York and all the incredible artists who have lived and worked here over time. Beyond that we’ve spent years walking the streets and learning the terrain of this town.
We were kicking around a few nebulous ideas for trying to tell the story of New York Rock & Roll when we attended a reunion of the Velvet Underground at the New York Public Library in December 2009.
Lou Reed and his bandmates all talked about their various adventures throughout the city, and it hit us that this might be a way in. Examine history geographically, street by street and neighborhood by neighborhood, like a travel guide. It took us a while longer to settle on a specific format, and how best to organize the narratives of several key artists, but we believe we’ve come up with something that’s informational yet fun to read.
How did you decide what NOT to include? There isn’t any shortage of NYC music history and trivia. (For example: The site of GG Allin’s last show is now a Duane Reade on Avenue B.)
Kott: We actually had that GG Allin death site on Avenue B in an early draft of the manuscript but we ultimately felt it was too grim to include. Not that there isn’t plenty of grimness in the book.
Early on we decided that with the exception of places that were both well known and historically significant, we didn’t want to include anyone’s current home address. We expanded that to include former residences that were still the homes of family members. That came up quite a few times, actually. But we didn’t want anyone bothering musicians or their families at home, so we left those out.
And we shared with our editors and publisher a goal of not putting out a book that was cumbersome or unwieldy, so that sometimes meant weighing the cultural significance of one location against another to see which to keep and which to cut. We also knew that by doing this we risked people just like us saying we’d made the wrong choices sometimes, but if we kept everything in there you’d have to carry the book around in a wheelbarrow.
Katz: From the outset we knew we wanted to create something portable and affordable that people could carry in their backpacks and read on the subway. We weren’t interested in producing something heavy and encyclopedic that sat on a shelf. It had to be interactive and encourage readers to get out and explore; to go where their heroes had gone. That dictated policing our own obsessive tendencies.
Every era and every artist presents its own set of rabbit holes to get lost in. We had to make sure we had enough primary information to satisfy the casual fan, and yet provide a quality selection of deeper details for the superfans. Some artists demand it, like Dylan or the Velvet Underground, certainly.
Covering all the pertinent eras, and there were more than we bargained for, was another challenge. So much of the music that laid the groundwork for the rock era was made in New York, too, and we felt we had to provide that context. New York has long been a major hub of the music industry, but we chose to focus primarily on the performers. We do tell the stories of certain key entrepreneurs, songwriters, and producers, though, too.
We had to make plenty of hard choices, and frequently called and messaged each other at all hours to work through many conundrums. We joke that all the stuff we didn’t use will go in the deluxe slipcased edition!
The East Village receives ample coverage in the book. Obviously there’s CBGB and the Fillmore East. What are a few of the under-the-radar places (or historical tidbits — like Nico lived at 101 Avenue A!) that people may not be aware of?
Kott: My favorite find in the East Village was the location of the former Kiwi Club, which was a regular hangout of a lot of the people associated with the early CBGB scene. And the Dead Boys lived in squalor above the place, too. I spoke to Legs McNeil and James Marshall, and both gave me great detail about what the place was like, but it took more digging to track down the actual address. It’s possible longtime East Village residents remember the place, but I was a kid when all that was happening so I’d have never known.
Katz: One of the things that people may not be aware of is how many identities some of these venues had. The Fillmore East, for example, aside from its roots as a Yiddish theater, has been known in the rock era as the Village Theater, the Villageast, and The Saint, in addition to the Fillmore.
You’re both music fans. What was your favorite discovery about the NYC music scene while researching the book?
Katz: Staying in the East Village, I really enjoyed researching the Fugs, and how central they were to developing the unique countercultural atmosphere of the area. They were serious troublemakers dedicated to pushing the buttons of a conservative society, but in the form of a band. And they faced real peril. They were repeatedly harassed, arrested, and threatened by the authorities, as well as terrorists. People are often unaware of how dangerous the ’60s could be.
Kott: I don’t know that it’s a discovery as much as a confirmation of what I already suspected, but the more layers we peeled back, the more we found a city that was a lot more connected than people give it credit for. I don’t know if there’s anywhere else in the world where so many different genres could come together and intermingle the way they have in New York City.
When you say “punk” to someone, they might have a narrow idea of what that means. But look at those first wave groups that came out of CBGB: Talking Heads, Blondie, Television, Ramones, Suicide, Mink DeVille — the list goes on and on, and none of them sounded the same. They all came from different places and had different influences, and most of them were open to not only hearing what was going on beyond the Bowery, but also bringing different elements of that into their music.
How do you think this current time period in NYC music might be remembered years from now for a future Explorer Guide?
Kott: I hope it carries on and we get to revise the book every so often forever to include artists that won’t make their mark for another five or 10 years. With Lizzy Goodman’s excellent "Meet Me in the Bathroom," people can experience an early aughts scene that grew around bands like the Strokes and Yeah Yeah Yeahs and wonder if something like that could ever happen again in this city. Whether there’s another total cultural shift through rock & roll that comes out of New York City, I don’t know. But there will always be new exciting artists here. The new Parquet Courts record is out in a couple of weeks, and I can’t wait.
Katz: One of the underlying subtexts of our book is the perpetual struggle to find places for music to be heard and for musicians to live. New York gets more expensive and less accessible for young artists every day, yet somehow it soldiers on. There are a plethora of great music venues throughout the five boroughs that cater to virtually every musical genre. Some will close and others will take their place.
While it’s easy to be cynical and grim I remain hopeful that New York will remain central to contemporary music in our country. It has to be, our population is too interesting and diverse to accept anything less.
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The publication date is June 1, but the book is already available in some shops, such as the Strand (see below) and online. The official launch takes place June 3 out at Rough Trade in Williamsburg. Follow @rrexplorernyc for updates as well as some archival rock pics from NYC.
"Smithereens" starts a weeklong revival today at the Metrograph, the newish theater complex down on Ludlow Street.
The 1982 dark comedy, which marked Susan Seidelman's directorial debut, is set in the East Village (and other downtown locales). Wren (Susan Berman), a suburban New Jersey escapee, is eager for downtown fame, plastering "missing" posters of herself on the subway and elsewhere. She sees a meal ticket in Eric (Richard Hell), the hot guy with a short attention span in a band. And there's the too-nice Paul (Brad Rijn), who pursues the uninterested Wren. Hustling ensues.
Seidelman started filming in late 1979, and continued on and off for the next 18 months. (Production shut down when Berman broke a leg during rehearsal.) "Smithereens," made for $40,000, was the first American indie invited to compete for the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival.
She went on to make several female-focused comedies, including 1985's "Desperately Seeking Susan" with Rosanna Arquette and Madonna and 1989's "She-Devil" with Roseanne Barr and Meryl Streep, among others. (She also directed the pilot for "Sex and the City.")
I spoke with Seidelman about "Smithereens" and her follow-up, "Desperately Seeking Susan," also partly filmed in the East Village, during a phone call last week. Here's part of that conversation, edited for length and clarity.
On why she wanted to tell this story in "Smithereens":
I was living in the East Village and I was also at NYU. And at the time, NYU Film School, the graduate film school, was on Second Avenue — part of it was where the old Fillmore East used to be. So for three years, that area around Seventh Street and Second Avenue was my stomping grounds.
I started NYU in 1974, and I was there until 1977. So it was interesting to watch the transition from the older hippie generation and hippie-style shops and people as it started transitioning into the punk and new wave kind of subculture. I was a music person, so I frequented CBGB and Max’s Kansas City at that time. And so, that world was interesting to me, and telling a story set in that world about a young woman who’s not from that world, but wants to be part of it in some way, was both semi-personal and just of interest.
On production shutting down:
There were challenges throughout the shoot because I never had all the money. The budget ended up being about $40,000, but I probably only had about $20,000 at any given moment. I was borrowing and racking up bills. I wasn’t really thinking about how I was going to pay it. I figured I’d get to that when I needed to pay it.
Aside from those challenges, when Susan Berman fell off a fire escape and broke her leg during rehearsal, there was no getting around that. We had to quit filming. I kind of thought, oh, you know, fuck it — I’m not going to let this stop me. It made me actually more determined. I had the time to look at what was working and what wasn’t working, and I learned a lot of stuff. I started editing the footage. I could rewrite stuff and change the story a bit.
On casting Richard Hell:
That was when we redefined the character of Eric, who was originally not played by Richard Hell. It was played by somebody else who was not a rock-and-roller — he was more of a downtown painter/artsy type, not a musician — and was also played by a European actor.
By recasting and redefining that role with Richard Hell in mind, it shaped the tone of the movie and changed it, I think, in a good direction. I’m not going to give names, but the other actor — the other person is a working actor, as opposed to Richard Hell, who was acting in the movie, but was more of a presence and an iconic figure even at that time. So trying to make the character of Eric blend in with the real Richard Hell added a level of authenticity to the film.
On filming in the East Village:
In the scene when Wren is waiting out on the sidewalk and the landlady throws her clothing out the window and then splashes her with water, all the people and all the reactions in the background were from the people living on that block who had come out to watch.
At the time, New York was coming out the bankruptcy crisis. There weren’t a lot of police on the street, there wasn’t a lot of red tape and paperwork. These days to film on the street, you have to get a mayor’s permit — so many levels of bureaucracy. Back then, either it didn’t exist … but also I was naïve to what probably needed to be done.
We just showed up with cameras and we filmed. We had some people working on the crew who were friends and they told crowds lining in the street — just don’t look in the camera. Sometimes they did, sometimes they didn’t, but it was all very spontaneous.
That’s the advantage of doing a super low-budget movie — you can just go with the flow. For example, there’s a scene with a kid who’s doing a three-card Monte thing on the sidewalk. He was a kid we saw in Tompkins Square Park with his mother. We didn’t have to worry about SAG or unions or anything. I thought he was interesting and [we asked his mother] if they come to this address at this time and be in our movie.
On the lead characters:
My intention wasn’t to make likable characters. My intention was to make interesting characters and who had some element of ambiguity. There are things that I like about Wren; on the other hand, I think she’s obviously somebody who uses people and is incredibly narcissistic. I’m aware of that. But she’s also somebody who is determined to recreate herself and to live the kind of life that she wants to live, and redefine herself from her background, which you get a little hint at, this boring suburban New Jersey life she must have run away from.
On the independent film scene at the time:
The definition of an independent filmmaker has changed so radically. Nowadays, being an independent filmmaker could mean you’re making a $5 million movie that’s really financed by the Weinstein Company, or it could mean you're doing a cellphone movie like “Tangerine.”
But back then, there weren’t that many independent filmmakers. I know there were some people working out of Los Angeles who were doing stuff and a small pocket of people in New York City. So either you knew them or you were friends with them or you just knew what they were doing and had mutual friends. It was truly a small community. And within that community, there were also a definite relationship between people who were musicians, filmmakers or graffiti artists.
So everyone was borrowing people, trading information or sharing resources. Also, the world wasn’t as competitive as it is today. People were eager and willing to help somebody who was a filmmaker would act in somebody else’s film or tell them about a location or a musician. It was pretty simple, like — hey, let’s make a movie, without a lot of calculation.
On her follow-up film, "Desperately Seeking Susan:"
I didn’t have anything lined up after "Smithereens." I didn’t know what I wanted to do next. I just finished the movie when it was accepted into the Cannes Film Festival.
But I did know that there were very few female film directors. And the one or two I had heard about who had made an interesting independent film ... I knew that your follow-up movie, especially if it was going to be financed by a studio, you needed to be smart about the choice. You had to make a movie that you could still be creatively in charge of, or else you could get lost in the shuffle.
For about a year and a half, I was reading scripts. And they were, for the most part, terrible. I just figured these couldn’t be my next movie. I have nothing to say about this kind of material.
So then I got this script. It was a little different than the way it ended up being, but it was called "Desperately Seeking Susan." I liked that the character, Susan, felt like she could be kind of related to Wren in "Smithereens." I thought I could bring something unique to that kind of a role. So I didn't feel like I was out of my element there.
And also, part of the film was set in the East Village, a neighborhood that I loved and knew. The other good thing was I was so familiar with the characters and able to add my own spin using a lot of people from the independent film community in small parts, like Rockets Redglare, John Lurie and Arto Lindsay. Richard Hell has a cameo.
On working with Madonna:
At the time, Madonna was not famous when we started out. We were just filming on the streets like she was a regular semi-unknown actress. So there wasn’t a lot of hoopla around the film.
And then, you know, so much of life is about being there with the right thing and the right timing. It just so happened that the movie came out at the moment that her "Like A Virgin" album was released and they coincided and she became a phenomenon. But since that wasn’t during the actual filming, there wasn’t the kind of pressure that one would normally feel if you were working with a big star or a a super-famous person.
On the legacy of "Smithereens":
I think I was trying to document what it felt like to live in that neighborhood in that part of the city at that time. I never really thought about it in terms of whether the film would pass the test of time or be a time capsule or anything.
But the fact that it ended up being pretty authentic to the environment, to the neighborhood, is maybe what enabled it to pass the test of time.
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The Metrograph is showing "Smithereens," which features a score by The Feelies, on a new 35-millimeter print courtesy of Shout Factory LLC. Seidelman will be attending tonight's 7 screening. Details here.
James Romberger is an artist-cartoonist known for his depictions of the neighborhood's streetscapes. In the mid-1980s, he was co-founder of the East Village installation gallery Ground Zero. His work has been shown in galleries around the city, and is in the public collection at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Brooklyn Museum.
Romberger's latest drawings — his first solo show of new pastel drawings since 2002 — are currently exhibiting at the Dorian Grey Gallery on East Ninth Street.
Per Dorian Grey, the exhibition "focuses primarily on witty, closely observed still lives and scenes from the vicinity of his birthplace on Long Island's North Fork.
EVG contributor Stacie Joy recently spoke with Romberger about his work.
The East Village and Lower East Side factor heavily into your work over the years. Why did you choose to feature your surroundings in your cartoon and pastel work?
Like many artists, I tend to draw what is around me because knowing it so well; I can invest the work with believable detail. But I like to draw different locales. For instance, my comic Post York is about NYC after the ice caps melt and the city floods, while my other recent graphic novel done with my partner Marguerite Van Cook, The Late Child and Other Animals, is about her growing up in England and France. I’ve been to those places, so I’m able to draw them convincingly.
How have the changes in the neighborhood over the years you’ve lived here affected your work? How do you feel about the changes?
It is a little odd for me to try to draw locally because it is so cleaned up. I am not nostalgic for slums, poverty, and drug-dealing, and I realize NYC is always changing, but I do miss some of the multicultural character of the neighborhood that has been lost, and many of the wealthier people moving in now are not interested in culture.
The city doesn’t support arts other than sanctioned forms — street art is obliterated, dancing isn’t allowed, etc. Small businesses are not supported, either. Real estate greed is what runs NYC.
Why did you decide to focus on the North Fork/Greenport, Long Island area for your latest exhibit, and do you envision a return to East Village/LES-based work?
For most of the past decade, I had been doing more comics than gallery-oriented pastel drawings. But I spent the summer staying at a friend’s house out on Long Island and drawing what was around me was a good way for me to get back into doing that sort of work.
The work isn’t entirely without social relevance —interestingly, like NYC, Greenport also largely functions by the exploitation of undocumented workers and I showed that. However, there are some new East Village drawings at Dorian Grey and I am drawing more NYC scenes now.
What’s next for you, work-wise?
I am working on making Post York a full book, and Marguerite Van Cook and I and our son Clockwork Cros are doing a show together called “The Nuclear Family” at the HOWL! Happening Gallery on East First Street opening April 6, 2016.
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The Dust pastels show runs through Jan. 3 at Dorian Grey Gallery, 437 E. Ninth St. between Avenue A and First Avenue.
Tom DiCillo came to New York City to study film at NYU in 1976.
Like other new residents, he was taken by the NYC subway system. "From the moment I arrived in the city, particularly when I'd get on the train, I noticed these tiny daily dramas," said DiCillo in a phone conversation last week. It provided potential dramatic fodder for a filmmaker, "but it wasn't feasible to carry a big camera and canisters of film" to attempt a subway shoot. It wasn't until some 30 years later when DiCillo bought a digital camera did he decide to make a movie capturing a slice-of-life look at the subway experience.
The other featured works are the 20-year-anniversary of his best-known film, the darkly satirical "Living in Oblivion," and the 2006 offbeat dramedy "Delirious," in which Steve Buscemi — also the star of "Living in Oblivion" — plays a small-time paparazzo. DiCillo and Buscemi will both be on-hand tomorrow night for a Q-and-A following the screening of each film.
After serving as cinematographer to classmate Jim Jarmusch's "Permanent Vacation" in 1980 and "Stranger Than Paradise" in 1984, DiCillo dabbled as an actor before striking out on his own as a director.
His first film was the absurdist fable "Johnny Suede" from 1991 and featuring Brad Pitt in his first leading role. (The Johnny Suede character's punk-rockabilly look and style came from some of the musicians DiCillo saw around the East Village in the 1980s.)
DiCillo's subsequent films included casts with Buscemi, Catherine Keener, Matthew Modine, Sam Rockwell, Peter Dinklage and Denis Leary, among others. The films found a limited but devoted audience. His subsequent challenges, from failed financing to lackluster distribution, have been well-documented (here and here, for example).
I spoke with an upbeat and talkative DiCillo on the phone from his Upper West Side apartment for nearly 40 minutes. What follows are some highlights from the conversation edited for length and clarity.
On making "Down in the Shadowland" over a six-year period:
In late 2007, I got my first small digital movie camera that I could carry around with me. I found taking this little camera and shooting whenever I wanted was so liberating that it actually took me back to the most basic impulses that I ever had wanting to be a filmmaker. Seeing something on the street and going Oh my God if I can only put that in a movie.
I thought the idea of capturing these ephemeral moments that exist underground would make for a great project. I started carrying the camera with me every day. After shooting for about four years, I said it was time to come up with a structure for it. [Laughs]
I think it's done. You could probably keep shooting this for 20 years. The whole purpose of it was to see if I could translate what my eyes were seeing to something other people would appreciate. It's kind of an individual journey. It's not a mass thing. The film works the best when you start to feel like it's a surreal and mysterious journey that's going on inside each of these individuals' minds.
I don't feel as if the film is strictly a documentary. There are many different kinds of films that are vérité. Every frame in it is real. But it's not a film that explains or illustrates the experience of the subway. It's less about the subway than it is about us as human beings. Twenty years from now this film is going to seem like a really bizarre time capsule.
On the filmmaking scene in the Lower East Side upon his arrival in 1976:
In that period, the late 1970s through the late 1980s, the city was really falling to pieces. There was a desperate element that fueled a great artistic movement… the punk scene, the independent film scene all were generated by the fact that things were falling apart.
None of my classmates I found interesting ever thought about going to Hollywood. The idea was to take this opportunity to make a film and do something that was completely different than Hollywood. Steve Buscemi was writing and performing plays with Mark Boone Junior. The only thing they really wanted to do was write and perform. They weren't worried about where they did it.
The film scene was that way too. Eric Mitchell, Amos Poe… these guys were making films on Super 8 and screening them in bars. Anybody could make a movie. You didn't have to have this enormous financial machine. New York was that way. It was a fantastic time. There was a feeling that something fresh and new was happening.
On making "Living in Oblivion":
When I got the idea for "Living in Oblivion," the first person to put up money was Dermot Mulroney. He was married to Catherine Keener at the time. She was the first person who I had shown the script to. She sent it to Dermot. He immediately put up $5,000. He said that he wanted to play the director. I said "I'll take your $5,000, but I think you'd be better suited to playing the cameraman." He said, "OK great. How about Steve as the director?" That was the beginning of my relationship with Steve. He said yes without even reading the script.
Steve is one of the most warmhearted and genuine people I've ever met. He is a fascinating actor. I'm thrilled that he is going to be [at the Anthology] with me.
When "Oblivion" was released here, it got a very nice notice from The New York Times, which helped it. A lot of critics panned the film, saying that it was just a movie for filmmakers. It crippled the film in some other markets. It always bothered me because it's like saying, "You can't make a film about astronauts, because only astronauts will want to see it." It's crazy.
On New York City today:
I'm definitely not the kind of person who's going to say that Times Square used to be better before it was cleaned up. I was a visitor there during that period when there were hookers and drugs. You wouldn't really want to go there. But to say that was a better time for the city is bullshit. There is a certain corporate bullshit that has happened to New York. I despise the fact that every single gritty, realistic aspect of the city has been bought by merchandising. A place that used to be a real meat market [has been turned] into something to make you feel like you are in a hip part of Manhattan.
The thing I love about the city … on the street level, it's a very democratic city. You engage with people of every level, shoulder to shoulder every day. New York still has this feeling that it is unique in America. There are people here from all over the world. I'm all for the quiet, small-town idea. But small-town thoughts are what is destroying this country. At least in New York there is a willingness to have different points of view.
On never giving up as a filmmaker:
Part of me believes that this is what I do best, that I have a skill at it. I've never had anything just given to me in life. Everything has been a struggle. Certainly the filmmaking part of my career has been a struggle as well.
There's nothing worse than being two years into raising money for a film, and you think it's going to be a go — everyone says that it's going to be a go — and you get the phone call: "We don't know why, but they just pulled out." It has happened so many times. And you go Ahhhhh! And you start again. I guess it was a belief that what I had written and what I knew what I could do was worth fighting for. The main thing that keeps me going is the thought that I will be making another film one day.
The 39th annual St. George Ukrainian Festival, held on East Seventh Street between Second Avenue and Cooper Square, starts this afternoon at 4.
In the aftermath of the deadly gas explosion on March 26 on Second Avenue at East Seventh Street, festival organizers decided to donate 10 percent of the profits to The Mayor's Fund to Advance New York City (designated to the East Village building collapse fund). Organizers said that they will look to showcase the unity and the resilience of the East Village with the 2015 edition of the festival.
Here, Andrew Stasiw, chairman of St. George Ukrainian Festival, answered a few questions via email about this year's event.
Were there any conversations about canceling this year's festival?
Yes. Monday after the explosion, I met with key people on the festival committee. We were all horrified by the reality of the accident, and especially by the loss of life.
We determined to wait until I had a chance to reach out to OEM (NYC's Office of Emergency Management) and SAPPO (NYC's Street Activity Permit Office) to determine whether we would even be allowed to have a street closure so quickly. Both offices assured me that the street closure 1 1/2 months later would not be a problem.
Another consideration we discussed with the church committee was our "Grandfather Status" with the City of New York. Should we for moral reasons choose to not hold our festival, we would lose our status, and not be allowed to have a three-day closure again in the next year. The City no longer grants three-day closures, and has not for two decades.
Our festival has now been a 39-year tradition, and an integral part of our outreach to our surrounding community. Our community would be devastated if we lost our permit. Though we could have requested a reprieve from the city, we opted to move forward with the festival, and do something for our community as well.
Thus, the festival committee along with our pastor, Father Bernard Panczuk, agreed that we should proceed with the festival. We reached out to our performers and partners, and all agreed that we should do something to help our community. This is when we determined to utilize part of our net profit to donate to the East Village Relief Fund established by the City. This will benefit both merchants who lost their businesses trying to reboot, and tenants who lost their apartments.
To increase our revenues, all performers have agreed to perform for free in order to help our church, school and the East Village Relief Fund.
How will this year's festival showcase the unity and the resilience of the neighborhood?
There is a passion in the hearts of the people in our neighborhood that is now stronger then ever. We at St. George Church are so grateful, and proud of our neighbors who have reached out to us, offering support for our efforts.
More then ever, this year's festival feels more like a collaborative community event versus just a Ukrainian ethnic festival. The neighborhood is resilient because they are coming together to celebrate our Ukrainian heritage as well as to honor and assist those suffering because of the explosion.
[Photo by Bobby Williams]
What do you personally look forward to each year with the festival?
The kids! Yeah, we get amazing professional artists performing, but it is all about the children. Ukrainian dance schools exist all over the tri-state area, and this festival gives them and their families an opportunity to perform in the City. Through these schools, these children of Ukrainian descent get to learn about their heritage and then share it through song and dance with the people of New York.
As an educator, I see the value for children in these types of after-school activities — helping to build parametric connections in their brains through movement and counting, and also build friendships that last far into their adulthood.
For this year, we are very excited about our festival, but our hearts are broken for the loss of Moises Ismael Locón Yac and Nicholas Figueroa, two young men whose time was cut too short because of the explosion.
At St. George, we pray for them and pray that God comforts the weeping hearts of their families. Personally, I wish I could have done more during this tragic event. I witnessed [the explosion], and it was impossible to get back into the building and look for more potential victims. That day is still hard to talk about, but now we need to focus on what we can do to keep our community strong.
The festival hours are tonight, 4 to 9; Saturday, 10 a.m. to 9 p.m.; and Sunday, 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.
John's of East 12th Street, the 106-year-old East Village treasure, is the subject of a new feature documentary that made its debut last night.
Here's a quickie recap of the 68-minute film: "This observational documentary loosely follows the rhythm of the restaurant’s day, which swings between boredom and frenzy as the old rooms empty and fill. No one who works at John’s is actually Italian, but some have been here for 40 years, including two pairs of brothers and a father and son. John's of 12th Street catalogues the overlooked details of working life and a vanishing New York City."
The documentary is the work of Vanessa McDonnell, a filmmaker and editor based in Brooklyn. She answered a few questions for us about the film.
Why was John’s of 12th Street an appealing subject for you?
I used to live on 14th and C in the worst apartment I’ve yet to encounter. My boyfriend (now husband) and I used to meet at John’s for dinner frequently and it was my escape from the hordes of mice, persistent gas leak and falling-down ceiling that was my life at the time (I slept with my head under a specially fashioned cardboard box so it wouldn’t be crushed).
John’s was a warm and friendly oasis of civilization for me, much more so than the trendy places that were inching their way toward Avenue C. It was like being lost in the woods but then finding your way to your grandmother's house where there’s food on the table.
I worked as a cook in an Italian restaurant throughout high school, and I had fond memories of the camaraderie and all of the daily rituals involved. I wanted to make a film that would show how special John’s is in particular, but also to show the small details of working life for the kitchen crew and waiters. We see a distorted version of this in all the food-related television that exists now, but not so much the actual vocation. I think the daily grind is really interesting.
What was the reaction from the folks there when you approached them with the idea?
My husband and I were eating one night when Mike Alpert, one of the owners, sat down at our table to chat, which you see him do a lot in the film. I was eating spaghetti and I brought up how Sophia Loren famously said "Everything you see, I owe to spaghetti,” which is something I like to bring up whenever possible.
Perhaps this endeared me to him. I actually asked him first if I could have a job. There has yet to be a female employee at John’s and after a bottle of wine I was feeling ambitious. He said no, so I asked him if I could make a film about the restaurant instead. Totally nonchalant, he gave his blessing, telling me not to get in the way too much. Both Mike and his business partner of 40 years Nick Sitnycky were incredibly friendly and helpful about my filming in the restaurant. I loved every minute I spent there.
You spent a month filming at John’s. What struck you the most about that experience?
I was struck by how many interesting and sometimes eccentric things happened in front of my camera. At first I thought to myself, “Wow. I’m getting really lucky here.” But then I realized it’s just the normal day at John’s.
Granted, these are things that I find interesting and charming and not the sort of things that would find their way into a food network show. For instance, a guy drove all the way from Canada because he’s obsessed with John Lennon and he got confused reading something on the Internet the day before, thinking it said that John’s is haunted by Lennon’s ghost. Also, people talk animatedly about the Gotti trial. The most argumentative handyman ever comes by to fix things. A regular starts singing an opera. Another weighs in passionately on Italian-American food as a legitimate cuisine unto itself, pointing out that “millions of billions” of plates of veal parmesan have been served and people like it.
[John's owner Nick Sitnycky with longtime employee Pedro. Photo last December by James Maher]
What do you think makes John’s special?
The allure of John’s is so hard to articulate. So many new restaurants try to create that atmosphere of warmth and history by designing the space and the menu in certain ways, and some people probably like a sanitized version that only hints at authenticity.
John’s is the real thing and unfortunately there are fewer and fewer places like it. It feels like a very open public space to me — as much as a place of business can — it’s not a place that is selective or self-selecting. You can go there and encounter many different kinds of people and it somehow encourages interaction. This is one of the crucial things that gets ruined when an area becomes transformed by the powers that be who are killing New York City right now — namely the collusion of government, real estate interests and corporations to create pockets of homogenous, uninteresting people.
I hope I was able to convey what makes John’s great in the film. There are so many little things that add up to the whole. Once I was eating there and the waiter asked if I wanted fresh pepper. I said yes. He starts grinding. After a few seconds I say, “Thank you,” meaning, in my mind, “okay you can stop now’. He said, “You’re welcome,” and keeps grinding. I said thanks again and again he keeps saying ‘you’re welcome,” continuing to grind. I looked up at him and said it again, he was actually getting tired from the grinding, grinding with effort. My food was covered with so much pepper. Finally I realized I was supposed to just say “Stop,” and I did, not a moment too soon. He came back several minutes later with a large, soup-size bowl full of pepper, saying, “Here, since you like it so spicy.”
Another time, I had a birthday gathering with about 25 people. The restaurant was really busy and maybe they were short on staff that night, so our waiter was really put through the paces, running back and forth and doing everything at once. At the end of the night he was really tired, his tie was hanging off and he was actually out of breath. He brought out the remains of my cake and I cut him a slice. He gave me a hug and said, “We did it!”
You can check out the trailer here...
As the flyer shows, there are screenings on Sunday night at 7:30, Nov. 22 at 10 p.m., Nov. 28 at 7:30 p.m. and Nov. 30 at 5 p.m. (Not on the poster: The screening Saturday night at 10.)
The screenings are at Spectacle in Williamsburg. Details here.
As we're cutting-and-pasting from the news release:
The product of four years of fieldwork in the East Village and on the Lower East Side, "Upscaling Downtown: From Bowery Saloons to Cocktail Bars" in New York City uses nightlife as a window into understanding urban development and explores what community institutions, such as neighborhood bars, gain or lose amid gentrification.
Ocejo considers why residents continue unsuccessfully to protest the arrival of new bars, how new bar owners produce a nightlife culture that attracts visitors rather than locals, and how government actors, including elected officials and the police, regulate and encourage nightlife culture.
Ahead of a panel discussion on the topic tomorrow night (see details at the end of this post), we asked Ocejo a few questions via email about his research.
Why was this topic of particular interest for you to explore?
I started by studying one bar, Milano's, on Houston. It was an old Bowery bar, until the area started to gentrify and newcomers — artists, students, writers, musicians — started moving in, around the 1980s and 1990s. These folks joined the homeless men who had been going to the bar for decades, until they began dying off or simply leaving as the Bowery became less of a Skid Row and more of a place for downtown luxury.
Then, in the 2000s, the "newcomers" were mainly people who wanted to visit the bar because it was a "dive." I was fascinated that these three generations of customers were all hanging out at this place, while the neighborhood was completely changing.
As a sociologist, I was taught to look at the larger context to truly understand what happens to specific people, small groups and places. So I decided to learn more about these changes in the surrounding area and in the city to see if there was any connection to what I had been observing at Milano's. It led to me exploring how downtown's nightlife scenes grew, who was involved with their growth and who was effected by it. I was really interested in what I thought was a unique form of gentrification, namely an advanced level in which forms of everyday life become upscale, as examined through the lens of bars and nightlife.
You spent four years in the neighborhood doing legwork for the book. How would you describe the changes that you witnessed during that time?
In that time I witnessed a lot of piecemeal changes — old businesses closing and new ones opening, old buildings getting renovated and new ones going up, community groups fighting gentrification both dissipating and forming. These changes happen in most neighborhoods, but what they look like and how they occur always vary.
I would describe them in these neighborhoods as like a slow death, I'm sorry to say, more so than a rebirth, as gentrification is often characterized, although these neighborhoods certainly have a lot of life in them, of a certain sort. It's both, and I came to appreciate many of the new cultures in these neighborhoods now. But I felt I was witnessing the spirit of downtown fading over the years. The new people and cultures don't have the same spirit.
Vanishing New York blogger Jeremiah Moss describes what happened on the Bowery as "the quintessence of hyper-gentrification." What do you think of that assessment?
I agree with him, and I believe his term is similar to my "advanced gentrification" concept. The British geographer Loretta Lees has also used the term "super-gentrification" to describe when really wealthy people gentrify an already wealthy neighborhood — certainly a possibility in these neighborhoods.
A difference between them, I believe, is their emphases. Bowery (the avenue) is interesting because historically the avenues and streets to its east gentrified earlier and more gradually than it did. I think it took a while for it to lose its Skid Row stigma. But once Bowery started to transform, it really went into hyper-drive. My concept deals with the result of the gentrification enterprise in a neighborhood. But I'd agree that what's happened on Bowery happened at a pace and scale unique among streets in the area.
Why do you think the Bowery is so appealing to developers, restaurateurs, bar owners, etc.?
Well, its zoning allows for tall buildings and mixed uses as of right. It's also right in between SoHo/NoHo and the East Village and Lower East Side. I'd like to say that its historical importance as a place for working-class culture is what attracts people there, but at this point, I think its history is insignificant to the people building and opening businesses there, at least in the sense that it doesn't seem to play a role in the places they open.
Early newcomers, like B Bar, at least referenced the street's past (not very delicately, but still). Now new bars, restaurants, hotels, and other businesses draw from a broad array of themes when they open their establishments, many of which point to upscale forms of leisure and consumption.
What can local residents and preservationists do, if anything, to slow down this nightlife gold rush on the Bowery?
The conclusion I reached in my book is, not much. They can certainly have little victories, like reducing a business's hours or altering its method of operation or even withdrawing from the space. But we haven't seen many examples in New York of gentrification reversing itself, if we've seen any at all (slowing down or stagnating, sure, but not reversing).
This pattern of growth is quite entrenched in New York politically and economically; it's what most officials and leaders feel it needs to operate.
So where do you see the Bowery in 10 years?
Barring some major economic catastrophe, I see the street becoming even more upscaled. Perhaps more so on the lower parts of the street, which still have lighting stores, jewelry stores and a strong Chinese presence.
But with many new Chinese immigrants living in less-expensive areas of the city, with increasing rents in Manhattan's Chinatown, and an aging Chinese population, it's likely that Chinatown will shrink further, giving way to similar developments we see on the upper parts of Bowery.
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Via the EVG inbox...
"Upscaling Downtown" book launch
Please join the University Settlement and the Bowery Alliance of Neighbors for a panel discussion to celebrate the publication of Richard E. Ocejo's "Upscaling Downtown: From Bowery Saloons to Cocktail Bars in New York City."
Representing groups examined in the book, panelists will express their thoughts on its arguments based on their own unique backgrounds. A Q-and-A period will follow.
When: Wednesday, Oct. 15, reception at 6:30 p.m., panel begins at 7 p.m.
Free and open to the public
About the panelists
• Rob Hollander: Neighborhood Historian and Activist
• Bob Holman: Poet, Founder, Bowery Poetry Club
• Matt Krivich: Director of Operations, The Bowery Mission
• Mike Stuto: Owner of HiFi Bar
• Richard E. Ocejo: Assistant Professor of sociology at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, CUNY
• Sara Romanoski, Director of East Village Community Coalition
