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Photo on Seventh Street today via Derek Berg. (Crews were out filming something called "Detective Chinatown 2.")
The struggles among new students at NYU are no doubt taking different forms. You might be struggling with how to meet friends or how to socialize with people who drink when you don't, or how to get involved in something, anything, when time seems so precious, etc. Some of you are wondering if everyone's smarter than you or if you're smart enough to be at NYU. Some of you are stressed with performance anxieties, with being cool. Some of you are just missing a home-cooked meal.
The struggles are real and sometimes hard, but they are normal. They are not a sign of a problem, but just the normal challenges of transitions to a new phase in one's life.
Dismiss any idea that your enrollment at NYU was a fluke. You belong here.
My suggestion: think good thoughts about yourself and others. Relax. And through it all, know that you are where you belong.
“I’m worth a fuckload of money bro.” @markgmaurer’s profile on the rapid & rocky ascent of EV landlord Rafi Toledano https://t.co/Y3Qvbea8jT
— Kerry Barger (@kerrybarger) June 1, 2016
In August ... Toledano filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection on the property and tried to procure a buyer. According to court documents filed by Shah, Toledano also used that time to threaten and extort him. Toledano threatened to instruct the tenants to withhold rent, according to the documents, and told Shah, “I will bury you, literally. I will bury this building and make sure of it.”
The 27-year-old landlord is awaiting approval for the sale of the deeds of 15 distressed East Village properties to lender Madison Realty Capital, which recently replaced him as property manager on the buildings.
Paul McDonald, who spent 13 years as a product manager at Google, wants to make this corner store a thing of the past. Today, he is launching a new concept called Bodega with his cofounder Ashwath Rajan, another Google veteran. Bodega sets up five-foot-wide pantry boxes filled with non-perishable items you might pick up at a convenience store. An app will allow you to unlock the box and cameras powered with computer vision will register what you’ve picked up, automatically charging your credit card. The entire process happens without a person actually manning the “store.”
Bodega’s logo is a cat, a nod to the popular bodega cat meme on social media – although if the duo gets their way, real felines won’t have brick-and-mortar shops to saunter around and take naps in much longer. “The vision here is much bigger than the box itself,” McDonald says. “Eventually, centralized shopping locations won’t be necessary, because there will be 100,000 Bodegas spread out, with one always 100 feet away from you.”
I asked McDonald point-blank about whether he’s worried that the name Bodega might come off as culturally insensitive. Not really. “I’m not particularly concerned about it,” he says. “We did surveys in the Latin American community to understand if they felt the name was a misappropriation of that term or had negative connotations, and 97% said ‘no’. It’s a simple name and I think it works.”
But some members of the Hispanic community don’t feel the same way. Take Frank Garcia, the chairman of the New York State Coalition of Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, who represents thousands of bodega owners. Garcia’s grandfather was the head of the Latin Grocery Association in the 1960s and was part of the original community of immigrants who helped settle on the term “bodega” for the corner store. “To me, it is offensive for people who are not Hispanic to use the name ‘bodega,’ to make a quick buck,'”Garcia says. “It’s disrespecting all the mom-and-pop bodega owners that started these businesses in the ’60s and ’70s.”
Trying to destroy bodegas with a startup called “Bodega” that has a bodega cat logo is… just awful. https://t.co/1W4pSnXoXn
— hello i am anil (@anildash) September 13, 2017
my bodega owners are yemeni immigrants and the bodega not only affords them a life in new york but also allows them to send money back home
— Jessica Roy (@JessicaKRoy) September 13, 2017
Weird that they're calling this heinous vending machine "Bodega" and not "Gentrification Box" https://t.co/xPCozclRRD
— Tristan Cooper (@TristanACooper) September 13, 2017
If Bodega were called Nile or Mississippi, would reaction have been the same? FreshDirect, Amazon are active in NYC & not great for bodegas.
— Anjali Khosla (@hellomountfuji) September 13, 2017
I see the Bodega backlash backlash has begun.
— Ian Bogost (@ibogost) September 13, 2017
*rubs hands together* Just as the machine learning predicted.
Twenty local restaurants and bars will participate, including Luke’s Lobster, Porsena, Veselka, Porchetta, Brick Lane Curry House and Le Petit Parisien. The $25 ticket gives attendees a chance to try 4 small plates from participating restaurants – additional tastings are available for purchase at the event.
Mr. Goldberg, a Chinese scholar who grew up in Spring Valley, N.Y., in Rockland County, became a professional luge racer and worked in finance before running a couple of places in Hong Kong. He decided a few years ago to do something, he said, “that would be interesting and make people happy.” He’d like to do his part to make jianbing as mainstream as ramen.
The East Village storefront, previously home to the popular gay haunt Eastern Bloc, is being transformed into a Weimar-inspired cabaret bar ... The modest space will have illustrated murals of New York night life personalities including Joey Arias, mismatched chandeliers and a small curtained stage with a piano.
Beyond debauchery, events will include book releases, “stitch and bitch” knitting classes and tantric sex workshops. “To have a local bar that is home for artists and those who love them, that’s important to me,” Mr. Cumming said. “I’ve always wanted to make people talk to each other instead of looking at their phones.”
City Lore is pleased to present Elaine Norman’s vision of the city as the first exhibit in our Deep New York series.
“Simply strolling down any New York street can be a visual adventure and an endless opportunity for discovery,” she writes. “The City has an extraordinary capacity to blend past and present, high-brow and low, traditional and modern.”
This vibrant, eclectic and constantly evolving architectural and cultural kaleidoscope has always been Elaine Norman’s passion and source of inspiration.
The property can be redeveloped up to 10,000 SF for a mixed-use development as per R7A zoning.
New residential projects include the adjacent 50 Clinton and The Ludlow, which have introduced 280 high-end residential apartments, bringing many young, affluent New Yorkers to the neighborhood.
We love this garden.
Please open it up for us. Its [sic] unfair to tease your neighbors by locking this special sanctuary.
Love your neighbors.