Revisiting: "How many rich jerks that want to be in Sex and the City can there possibly be in America?"

I originally ran this post on April 9. But it seemed like a good thing to repeat, given what's facing us next Friday...



In a Q-and-A published at Gothamist today, singer-songwriter (and Brooklyn resident) Mike Doughty was asked: If you could change one thing about New York what would it be?

His answer (bravo!):

The forward march of the gentrification cold-front. But I keep in mind that gentrification hasn't been around forever, and is a trend, not a universal unstoppable force. How many rich jerks that want to be in Sex and the City can there possibly be in America? OK, a lot, but there's not a limitless supply. If the upcoming Sex and the City movie tanks, it will be for the societal good.

Meanwhile, back to the present...

Minetta Tavern is one of Esquire magazine's "Best Bars in America"

I noticed the coverlines on the June issue of Esquire touting its next installment of the "Best bars in America" feature. Was a little curious to see if they picked any bars in the neighborhood, some place the editorial assistants told the bosses to include. (Which may explain why/how my beloved Grassroots was picked in 2006.) Anyway, I went to their Web site today to check out the list. I saw where Minetta Tavern made the list at No. 6! Deserving! But who wants to tell them that the place closed last week? (Perhaps this is last year's list...though the home page does have the June cover subject, Barack Obama, featured....)

Meanwhile, someone should also tell the good people at Citysearch the same news.

Third Avenue, 7:47 a.m., May 24

[And warning: Street festival on Third Avenue today!]

Friday night, May 23

Highs and lows this week

Such good news this week about St. Brigid's.




Meanwhile, this is what's left of the Tower of Toys as of Friday afternoon around 4.

"A handful of its buildings may seem grimly picturesque, but for the most part this is unappealing New York"

That's Simon Jenkins writing in today's Guardian UK.

It's a reaction to the National Trust for Historic Preservation naming the LES in its 2008 list of America's 11 Most Endangered Historic Places.

Here's an excerpt from his column:

A new facet of globalisation is well-meaning organisations roaming the planet listing things as threatened or on the brink of extinction. They may be a beetle, a rainforest, a Buddhist temple or, it so appears, the spirits of a city's past. Two years ago the Indiana Joneses of Unesco fought their way up the Thames to be appalled by the Tower of London. They found its setting blighted - as if overnight - by ugly office blocks, qualifying it for the "world heritage in danger" schedule. Liverpool waterfront received a similar finger-wagging.

The Tower of London is one thing, the Lower East Side another. I have been a "poverty tourist" in many awful places and felt the mix of guilt, shame and astonishment at such human resilience. But it never occurred to me to want to "save" the street camps of Calcutta, the shanties of Bogota or the inhabited concrete ruins of modern Baghdad.

The Lower East Side is not in this league, but the principle is similar. A handful of its buildings may seem grimly picturesque, but for the most part this is unappealing New York, an environment of drab tenements, public housing and vacant lots, where only the lifestyle of the fleeing minorities infuses the streets with some visual interest. The concept of "endangered" here applies to an idea, that of a cultural and social fabric, and one that is inevitably transient.

Yet the appeal of that fabric to local residents and to New Yorkers in general is undeniable. This may be a New York churning with "comers and goers", but both residents and those new to the area seem to agree on one thing: they want something of its character preserved. Conservation has matured from saving buildings to seeing them as a proxy for communities, cultures and a sense of physical identity. It is reflected in the British yearning to "save rural communities" by subsiding houses and preventing sales to newcomers, the so-called "yokel in a smock" syndrome.

Dumpster of the Day

10th Steet between Avenue A and First Avenue.

I had this dream in which I woke up and every corner in the city was now a condo, bank and Duane Reade

Then I woke up for real and.....AHHHHHHHHHH!

The Brooklyn Bridge really overdid it last night during its 125th birthday

Can't even call this a hangover. Still, what a blowout!

I'm really tired of suggestive advertising

What exactly does "come to your happy place" mean?



Now this is just too much!