Bowery blues

From Bowery Street to the Bowery District, there's no shortage of attempts to call the Bowery everything but the Bowery of late. In a blog post today, Michelle and James Nevius, authors of "Inside the Apple: A Streetwise History of New York City," discuss previous attempts to change or repurpose the Bowery name through the years:

By the late 19th century, the Bowery had become synonymous with skid row.

A lot of the Bowery’s reputation was deserved, but at least part of the blame for its near-universal name recognition was the musical A Trip to Chinatown, which featured the song “The Bowery.” Its chorus boasts:

The Bow'ry, the Bow'ry
They say such things and they do strange things,
On the Bow'ry! The Bow'ry!
I'll never go there any more.

By 1916, the street’s reputation had gotten so bad that civic groups battled to come up with a new name for the thoroughfare. One suggestion was “Cooper Avenue” in honor of Cooper Union founder (and Jell-O pioneer)* Peter Cooper.

A rival proposition recommended “Central Broadway.” It’s hard to imagine the chaos this name change might have brought about in a city that already featured Broadway, West Broadway, and East Broadway.

EV Grieve Etc.: Mourning edition

Bob Arihood has a not-so-good update on Ray of Ray's Candy Store as well as a report on some Avenue A thuggery (Neither More Nor Less)

The return of DJ Lenny M (Down by the Hipster)

Inside the Pee Pee Phone (Slum Goddess)

An update on the Aqueduct's racino plans (Queens Crap)

Horse-drawn carriages may be replaced by eco-friendly vintage cars (Gothamist)

The Elk Hotel loses some business (Jeremiah's Vanishing NY)

Rite Aid and Sbarro are among the companies who may not last through the recession (Yahoo! News)

Smell like the Astor Place cube (Esquared, who has a new home)

What retailers say about the recession (New York)

Ruffians who sing Sham 69 songs in the middle of the night (Flaming Pablum)

More fun at the Ludlow Residence (BoweryBoogie)

The Blarney Stone is back in business

A lovely sight. No word yet on why they were closed on Fulton Street for seven-plus days...

A pile of clothes at the Royal Tailor

Jeremiah has written about one of the treasures left in the East Village, Gino DiGirolamo, the tailor who has been plying his trade here for more than 40 years. He moved to 14th Street between Avenue A and Avenue B in late 2006.



I walked by his shop Friday night at 10...Per usual, he was still at work...barely visible behind a pile of clothes...





It appears business is good, which makes me happy...


For further reading:
Still Shopping, Maybe, but Now it's For a Tailor (New York Times)

New signage for St. Brigid's

There are new signs up at St. Brigid's on Avenue B at Eighth Street that note the upcoming restoration of the historic church...and its rebirth in the community.




An article in this week's issue of The Villager provides an update on the restoration:

Neighbors, elected officials and friends from near and far gathered on Feb. 1, the Feast of St. Brigid, to celebrate the victory of the Committee to Save St. Brigid’s in the group’s long struggle to prevent the demolition of the 1849 church on Tompkins Square Park.

The committee saw its dream come true last May when the Catholic Archdiocese of New York announced it had accepted a $20 million donation from an anonymous donor, including $10 million to restore and maintain the building and the parish and another $10 million to endow parish schools in the area.

The donor is still anonymous and the archdiocese has declined to identify the “angel” who made the gift.

Edwin Torres, leader of the committee, told the gathering on Sunday that the archdiocese had received the last $5 million installment of the $10 million for the building restoration on Dec. 16 and that architects and engineers have been working in the building at 119 Avenue B since the beginning of the year.

“We’ve been at the site at least once a week and we’ve spoken to the engineers — they’re testing the bricks and mortar in the church to see the extent of the problems,” Torres said, adding, “This will probably be the last meeting of the committee — we’ve achieved what we set out to 10 years ago. But we’ll continue to monitor the site,” he said.

By the way, there's also a new Post Office box there too...the old one at that spot was fairly battered looking...I liked it.


Previous St. Brigid's coverage on EV Grieve here.

I just had to look (but you don't have to)

Found myself on the Upper West Side yesterday afternoon...As you know, the P & G Cafe at Amsterdam Avenue and 73rd Street closed on Jan. 31...and is moving to a new location. Brooks at Lost City had a photo of the iconic neon sign being removed from the building last week...

This is what is used to look like...



I knew it would be ugly...but I walked by anyway.



Ugh. Nothing is left inside, of course. I still looked. While I was peaking inside, another fellow stopped and took it all in. "Wow," he said.

Yes.

Check out Ken Mac's photos of the P & G (how we will remember it) at Greenwich Village Daily Photo.

Alex also paid his respects this weekend over at Flaming Pablum.

Tompkins Square Park Christmas tree update

On Saturday, the Christmas tree in Tompkins Square Park was turned off after nearly two months...

On closer inspection Sunday...



...the lights are still on the tree...



So maybe someone can plug it in for Valentine's Day.

Comings and goings: Third Avenue and Ninth Street

East Village Photo at 35 Third Avenue recently lost their lease and moved...



The store is empty...save, curiously enough, for the rack of NYC postcards.



So this means the corner store on Third Avenue and Ninth Street in the building that houses NYU's Alumni Hall dormitory is available...FroYo anyone? (Just guessing -- seems reasonable, eh?)

Also, we noted a few weeks back that M Sonii, the vintage-y, knicknack-y store at 220 E. Ninth St. near Third Avenue, was closing...appears now they have found a new location...just a few blocks away...



According to a commenter, the Sonii space is owned by the people who run the parking garage next door...and they were looking for a hefty rent increase.

Sintir update (you know, that new place opening on East Ninth Street)

The rather mysterious looking, we're-assuming-Moroccan joint coming to East Ninth Street between Avenue A and First Avenue...

November:


January:


February:


...is one of the few places applying for a new liquor license (wine)...the Community Board 3's SLA & DCA Licensing Committee will consider this other applications tonight at 6:30.

Have a Coke and a smile!

Oh, oops! Wrong soda slogan! At 14th Street and Avenue A.

Meanwhile, in 1980.

Lux life

Third Avenue near Ninth Street. From the Times obituary (via Stupefaction):

Lux Interior, who introduced the excitement of deviant rockabilly to the punk era as the lead singer of the Cramps, died early Wednesday in Glendale, Calif. He was 62.
The Cramps were founded in New York around 1976 by Lux Interior (born Erick Purkhiser in Stow, Ohio) and the guitarist Poison Ivy (Kristy Wallace) with a distinct musical and visual style. As connoisseurs of seemingly all forms of trashy pop culture from the 1950s and ’60s — ranging from ghoulish comic books to Z-grade horror films to the rawest garage rock — they developed a sound that mixed the menace of rockabilly’s primitivist fringe with dark psychedelia and the blunt simplicity of punk.

Also at Stupefaction, Karate Boogaloo has a link to a podcast of a radio show Lux Interior did back in the summer of 1984.

A New York state of mind in Wyoming, Alabama, Siciliy and maybe Pakistan

The Times today rounds up the iconic pieces of vintage New York that have recently been exported.

Cheyenne Diner to Alabama (and now they want the shuttered Ridgewood Theater in Queens)

Moondance Diner to Wyoming

Kim's video collection to a Sicilian town

"And from Pakistan came interest in another New York icon: the Astroland Rocket at Coney Island."

Hmm.

No, it’s not the faltering economy that’s putting venerable New York up for sale and shipment. It may be just coincidental that there is a flurry of outliers who are in a New York state of mind and want a part of it.

“We’re not taking anything from New York — the diner needed saving,” said Cheryl Pierce, who with her husband, Vince, bought the Moondance in 2007 for $7,500. They spent $40,000 to move it 2,125 miles to La Barge in western Wyoming, where it opened on Jan. 12 after a delay to replace a roof collapsed by snow.

It is hardly a new phenomenon, of course. New York has been exporting its bounties, willingly and unwillingly, since the days of Peter Stuyvesant and marauding redcoats.

More recently, according to the city’s Landmarks Preservation Commission, cast-iron eagles from the old Pennsylvania Station and Grand Central Terminal have turned up at suburban estates, a kiosk from the 1939 World’s Fair is now a restaurant in New Jersey, parts of an 18th-century ship found at 175 Water Street were sent to the Mariners’ Museum in Newport News, Va., and old subway cars are swimming with the fishes as artificial reefs off the Delaware coast.

[Moondance photo: Nicole Bengiveno/The New York Times]

Breaking: Christmas tree lights turned off in Tompkins Square Park

The tree lighting ceremony was Dec. 14...

Previously on EV Grieve:
By the way, the Christmas tree is still on in Tompkins Square Park

EV Grieve Etc: Mourning edition

Good news from the Holiday (Jeremiah's Vanishing NY)

St. Mark's DJ Lenny M busted (Down by the Hipster)

City takes a year and a day to replace a bulb in a street light -- in a nice part of town (New York Times)

The longest article ever on Mr. Kim and Kim's video (New York Times)

Seven months later, Butcher Bay opens on East Fifth Street (Eater)

The end of the Sixth Avenue El (Ephemeral New York)

A great shot of the defunct Con Ed plant on Kent Avenue (Brownstoner)

"Nothing throws a neighborhood into relief like death, and nothing organizes a neighborhood like a good bar, preferably one that can sort the locals from the tourists or barhoppers." (Patell and Waterman's History of New York)

None of this will be on the midterm

From Newsday:

NYPD seeks suspects in ATM "not working"

NEW YORK - Police are looking for four people who have been scheming to steal money from bank customers using cash machines in Manhattan's East Village.

Police said Friday the suspects have run a low-tech scam multiple times since October.

After the target puts his or her bank card into an ATM, a woman approaches and says that machine isn't working. While the victim uses a nearby machine, a second suspect watches and notes the victim's personal code.

That suspect gives the code to a third person, who then punches it into the machine the victim initially used -- and didn't cancel out of. Because the machine is still activated by the victim's card, the suspect is able to use the code to withdraw money.

Police have security-camera photos of at least one suspect.

And that photo...



Anyway, the lesson? Keep your money under your mattress!

Tear it Up

The Cramps. RIP Lux. Read more on Lux at Flaming Pablum and Stupefaction.

We're all likely stuck with a SATC sequel, so we might as well make fun of it (some more)

Over at Runnin' Scared today, Roy Edroso has some fun whipping up plotlines that we'd like to see for the as-yet-to-be-written Sex and the the City sequel...news of which was recently confirmed. (Haven't we suffered enough of late with all the lousy economic news...?) Per Runnin' Scared:

Big's salary is capped at $500,000, and Carrie is replaced at the paper by a 19-year-old anal sex enthusiast with the nom de plume BrownEye, in honor of the Ivy League school she dropped out of. Money becomes tight, and Big finds that after a lifetime of Cohibas he cannot adjust to El Productos. After a series of comic moonlighting misadventures as a cab driver and new media consultant, he works contacts from his secret past as a NYPD detective and gets some shifts as a bouncer with his old pal Jesse L. Martin. Carrie starts a blog, which she makes racier to draw traffic ("How can I say I love you," her words scrolls across the MacBook screen, "when your balls are in my mouth?") but it still doesn't pay much, and they are forced to move to Greenpoint. There is a poignant, slow-motion moment when Carrie realizes Vera Wang isn't suitable for Studio B.

(Jumping ahead to) Day 7: The Blarney Stone is still closed

The fellows at the shoe repair shop next door are equally mystified as to why the Blarney Stone isn't open...and they said it closed last Friday, not Monday as I previously thought. Commenter Stewie at Eater mentioned yesterday that several businesses along this stretch of Fulton Street have had problems with water pipes of late. True...a very likely cause for a closing. However, looking in the BS's back entrance on Ann Street, nothing looks out of place. No signs of construction...or work of any kind. One minor thing: The five pieces of tape on the front gate -- from which a sign had been telling us what was what? -- are now gone...

The Mercury Lounge survived John Mayer, it can survive this

From Curbed: The building that houses the Mercury Lounge is now on the market...However, the Mercury's lease runs until 2018...

EV Grieve Etc.: Mourning edition (updated)

Cover your eyes: Daniel Maurer takes a look at the new-look Holland. We expected it to be cleaner and what not, but a fucking MP3 juke? (Grub Street)

RIP Stefan Lutak; opened the Holiday in 1965 (Jeremiah's Vanishing NY)

Google Maps still thinks CBGB is open (BoweryBoogie)

Bloomy's order inviting illegal development? (Save the Lower East Side!)

The Rhum Rhum Room is real (NY Barfly)

PS 64 still for rent (The Villager)

Whaa?: 76-year-old Ray of Ray's Candy Store turned down for Social Security (Scoopy's Notebook, fourth item)

At Neil's Coffee Shop (where Abe Vigoda eats!)

If I lived near Lexington and 70th Street, and thank God I don't (kidding!), I'd likely spend a lot more time at Neil's Coffee Shop, a throwback to the days when diners were, uh, diners. Nothing phoney about this place, from the formica tables to the professional waiters.




And, before continuing...why, yes -- that's Abe Vigoda.



One of the waiters told me was just in the other day. By the way, Abe turns 88 this Feb. 24.



Other stars of stage and screen have been here, too, as you can see from the gallery of publicity stills...There's Harry Belafonte...Steve Martin...Jack Hanna, the zookeeper whose sole purpose in life seems to be as a guest on Letterman.



And the food? Delicious!




And here are a few more shots of the rest of the place...






Finally! A great NYC diner that's not moving to Alabama or Wyoming.

Worth noting:
In 2002, Neil's suffered damage when the tailor shop next door was destroyed by a firebomb...

Taking another look at Clinton and Stanton: Where's the synagogue?

Just a few follow-up items from my Remembering 172 Stanton St. post from yesterday...First, thanks to commenter KMC for the link to the photo below of what Clinton and Stanton used to look like...



Then, something was bothering me about the artist's rendering of what the corner will look like soon courtesy of the new million-dollar condo 32 Clinton...



This is what it actually looks like as of yesterday...something's missing from the artist's version and reality...



It's the historic synagogue at 180 Stanton Street...I don't see that in the artist's version...it's replaced by what looks like a fancy new building.



I hope the artist doesn't have any kind of inside information...

A sign of spring

Baseball...Handsome Dick's Yankees (and other teams) report to camp soon...
Taken in front of Manitoba's on Avenue B.

P.S. Snapped this photo while walking by last night...Check out the TV screen behind Joba...Braindead?

Bloomy's "assemblage of private enclaves"

Over at the Daily Gotham, Bouldin discusses Mayor Fiorello La Guardia and his relationship with FDR. La Guardia was a constant guest at the White House, and was able to secure Federal funds to help bring NYC out of the Depression, Bouldin writes. Meanwhile, Bloomberg's public schedule doesn't indicate any White House visits. "In short, his administration is wasting potentially billions of dollars that could be spent on needful things."

Later:

[T]he big difference between LaGuardia and Bloomberg is one of vision. LaGuardia loved the City as public space, with great, sprawling vistas built for the public. Mayor Bloomberg's vision is profoundly distinct from that: he sees the City as an assemblage of private enclaves that, without ready cash, are closed to you.

That's the problem. We could have a re-birth of the City, with a grand plan for the future. But we do not have that, that great living adventure, nor will we get it.