People throw away their luggage because they can't afford to travel.
People can't afford to fix their nice cars.
Park Avenue residents subjected to white bread.
Tuesday, July 29, 2008
Signs that the economy is really bad
The ATMs don't work anymore.
People throw away their luggage because they can't afford to travel.
Park Avenue residents subjected to white bread.
People throw away their luggage because they can't afford to travel.
Park Avenue residents subjected to white bread.
Revisiting the decline of New York City
As you can see, the Sept. 17, 1990, issue of Time had this cover story, The Rotting of the Big Apple.
Excerpt:
Skyrocketing real estate prices (a one-room apartment that rents for $800 a month is considered a bargain) have driven middle-class families out of Manhattan and are threatening the creative enterprises that make the island a cultural oasis. Twenty years ago, about 50 or 60 new productions opened on Broadway each year. Today soaring costs have driven the price of an orchestra seat to $60, and a healthy season yields no more than 35 new shows, only 12 of which are deemed successes. In dance alone, New York lost 55 world-class studios in the past four years. Others, including Martha Graham Dance, are considering following the example of the Joffrey Ballet by establishing second and third homes in other cities. That means a shorter season in New York. "This is the most expensive, difficult and competitive city for arts organizations," says David Resnicow, president of the Arts and Communications Counselors, which arranges sponsorships for corporations and cultural institutions. "You don't have to be in New York to make it. "
Full article here.
Hooters and Red Mango
This thought crossed my mind when I saw the Red Mango sign in the window of the former CBGB T-shirt shop the other day: What if someone is just fucking with us?
Remember when jokesters put the Hooters sign in the window of the recently shuttered Second Avenue Deli back in February 2006? Lordy, had I been doing this site at the time, there would have been around-the-clock-developing-breaking-exclusive coverage of the sign.
Well, maybe not. Anyway, Urban Prankster recently revisited the Hooters hoax.
As for Red Mango on St. Mark's, I'm afraid we really are in for more frozen yogurt.
If you're thinking about driving on: Beekman Street
Uh. Good luck. And you may want to throw it in four-wheel drive. (Also, I've always liked the sign for the Beekman, hidden there a bit on the right.)Monday, July 28, 2008
EV Grieve Etc.
With less than 18 months left in Mayor Bloomberg's final term, the city's Landmarks Preservation Commission is in a race against the clock to approve historic designations for more than 1,000 buildings. (NY Post)
The Gov. has grim news: get ready for the worst economy in decades
According to today's Post anyway:
Gov. Paterson, convinced the state faces its worst fiscal crisis since the mid-1970s, will deliver the grim news in an unprecedented special address to New Yorkers as soon as tomorrow night, The Post has learned.
The governor's address - which his aides hope will be televised by public and cable news stations - will say that plunging state revenues will force painful cuts in state services, necessitate a reduction in the state work force, possibly through layoffs, and require other difficult economic measures, source said.
The city's kitty is also doomed as doomed can be.
Which makes this tie-in so perfect! Let's go out and buy expensive Depression-era clothes!
The duds say it all - and it's depressing.
Taking a cue from the grim economy, this fall's fashions at Banana Republic, Gap and H&M are featuring a distinctly Depression-era trend of cloche hats, pencil skirts, conductor caps and baggy, vintage-style dresses.
One of the most popular styles appears to hark back to the impish, newsboy getup of the 1930s: baggy trousers, caps, pinstriped vests, oxford lace-up shoes and utilitarian handbags.
"We associate the newsboy look with urban poverty - street kids of the 1930s," said Daniel James Cole, a professor at the Fashion Institute of Technology.
"Given that we're in an unstable economy and an uncertain political landscape, it's possible that a retro style has come back as a way to connect with our heritage."
Now. Let's seize the day!
And now for something new and different on St. Mark's
Alternate headline: You've got to be fucking kidding me.
At the site of the old CBGB shop. (Surprised someone isn't calling this yogurt place Punk Berry.) I even made a joke on March 29 that this location would become a yogurt shop. So I guess this is my fault.
Previously on EV Grieve:
Tourists will have to go online to buy their CBGB T-shirts
Important decisions of our time
What's new on Avenue C?
Bao 111 at 111 Avenue C closed up shop at the end of February because of escalating rents...(Get this: the owner planned to move to the west side because it was less expensive.)
Anyway, the new owners are renovating the space, with hopes of opening by the end of the summer. They were very cordial, and told me it will be a restaurant featuring French-Carribbean fare.
Meanwhile, as the sign reads, Barnyard is open (last Tuesday was its first day, in fact), a high-end cheese and meat shop at 149 Avenue C just north of Ninth Street.
Anyway, the new owners are renovating the space, with hopes of opening by the end of the summer. They were very cordial, and told me it will be a restaurant featuring French-Carribbean fare. 
Meanwhile, as the sign reads, Barnyard is open (last Tuesday was its first day, in fact), a high-end cheese and meat shop at 149 Avenue C just north of Ninth Street.
Sunday, July 27, 2008
Free punk show in Tompkins Square Park Sunday
EV Grieve FYI
From the Times:
THE Manhattan co-op market has just set a sales record, according to brokers briefed on the sale.
Jonathan Tisch, the chairman and chief executive of Loews Hotels, closed this month on the purchase of a sprawling 14-room co-op facing Central Park, for $48 million, the brokers said. The apartment is on the 11th floor at 2 East 67th Street, one of the monuments to luxury living designed by Rosario Candela in the 1920s.
Wow. Just $8 million more than what the Yankees gave Carl Pavano.
The rich want Bloomberg for a third term
According to today's Post:
Big Apple business honchos want four more years of Mayor Bloomberg -- and are preparing to do whatever it takes to help him stay in City Hall for a third term.
Sources close to the mayor say his deep-pocketed pals are "aggressively pushing" him to run again - his term ends in December 2009 - and are strategizing on how to change term-limits law to make it happen.
"We believe it's very feasible," said one source. "If he decides to run again, there are people who want him, and those people are planning to do everything they can. It is a very, very strong movement."
[Image via New York Post]
Keeping the spirit alive
Yesterday afternoon on Fifth Street near Avenue A. Two signs leftover from the "let them eat cake" protest from July 11.
Is it July 27 yet?
Oh, good. That means it's time for the start of the second season of Mad Men, the AMC show about advertising in 1960s Manhattan...that is seemingly advertising everywhere around the city. Gawker had a post July 14 on the Mad Men subway-ad campaign.
(Coincidentally, at the time I saw the post, Mad Men was up on the site's ad rotation.)
Meanwhile, if you like the show, Gridskipper posted a handy-dandy guide to Mad Men locales in the city last year. (And can a Mad Men tour for tourists be too far behind...?)
(Coincidentally, at the time I saw the post, Mad Men was up on the site's ad rotation.)
Meanwhile, if you like the show, Gridskipper posted a handy-dandy guide to Mad Men locales in the city last year. (And can a Mad Men tour for tourists be too far behind...?)
[Images on Gawker -- Flickr via Thighs Wide Shut]
That sound you hear is EV Grieve scrapping the bottom of the barrel to find mid-1980s footage of Times Square
It's Huey Lewis! And the News! Howard Johnson's in all it's neon glory at the 38-second point.
Saturday, July 26, 2008
Too many people got Carrie-d (groan, sorry) away on the stoop
According to this week's issue of The Villager (via Jeremiah):
Call it “Stoop and the Groupies.”
With the May film release of “Sex and the City,” flocks of female fans of the show once again are pouring into narrow Perry St. in Greenwich Village. But as waves of women visit the front steps of the imaginary home of Carrie Bradshaw, tempers in the community have begun to flare.
Visitors are lured to the area by the fictional lives of the characters created for the popular TV series. They sit for photos on “Carrie’s stoop” and shop in local boutiques. They wait on line for cupcakes at nearby Magnolia Bakery, then sit outdoors eating them on a nearby bench — just like Carrie and Miranda did.
For the show’s fans, at least, it seems a picture-perfect ritual. Yet, in the sweltering heat of summer, some neighbors are resenting all the ruckus and seeking an end to “Sex and the City” tours on their streets.
Last week, residents won a reprieve, when, on July 15, the largest of the tour operators, On Location Tours, announced it would take Perry St. off its route.
On this solemn occasion, I'd like to look back at this post from June 2:
These are a few of the photos you'll find when you search for "Carrie Bradshaw" on Flickr
A reminder of artists who lived and worked in the LES
[Tom Warren, P.P.O.W. Gallery “Portrait/Self-Portrait of David Wojnarowicz,” at P.P.O.W.]
The Times had a review yesterday of two exhibits that I want to see.
HISTORY KEEPS ME AWAKE AT NIGHT
A Genealogy of Wojnarowicz
P.P.O.W.
555 W. 25th St., Chelsea
Through Aug. 22
SIDE X SIDE
La MaMa La Galleria
6 E. First St., East Village
Through Aug. 3
An excerpt of the review by Holland Cotter:
With the Lower East Side fast losing connections to its history as an alternative neighborhood for art and politics, two summer group shows remind us of artists who lived and worked there, and have, through example, passed its spirit on.
“History Keeps Me Awake at Night: A Genealogy of Wojnarowicz” at P.P.O.W. — a gallery that opened on East 10th Street in 1983 — focuses on David Wojnarowicz, the radical-minded artist, writer and East Village denizen who died of AIDS in 1992. Although the show has five pieces by him, its purpose is to map his continuing presence, and the work of younger artists assembled by the curators Photi Giovanis and Jamie Sterns, conveys varying degrees of influence and homage.
Possibly the most striking difference between Wojnarowicz’s Lower East Side and our own was the inescapable presence of AIDS in the 1980s and 1990s. “Side x Side” at La MaMa La Galleria includes work by three Wojnarowicz contemporaries who died of the disease — Scott Burton (1939-1989), Nicolas Moufarrege (1947-1985) and Martin Wong (1946-1999) — and by two other artists, Kate Huh and Carrie Yamaoka, whose work registered its impact.
Newsflash: New York is expensive (aka, we're No. 1!)
According to Forbes:
New York City's got fashionable Fifth Avenue, trendy Tribeca and an oasis in Central Park. To enjoy those perks, residents pay up.
The Big Apple topped a new list of America's most expensive cities, with a measured cost of living surpassing that of Houston, Boston and Washington, D.C. The culprit? High rent: $4,500 a month on average for a two-bedroom, unfurnished luxury apartment.
Los Angeles comes in second place. Its residents can partly blame a long, expensive commute. The average driver there spends 72 hours a year stuck in traffic delays, and, as of July 21, the cost of a gallon of regular gas was $4.46.
The Big Apple topped a new list of America's most expensive cities, with a measured cost of living surpassing that of Houston, Boston and Washington, D.C. The culprit? High rent: $4,500 a month on average for a two-bedroom, unfurnished luxury apartment.
Los Angeles comes in second place. Its residents can partly blame a long, expensive commute. The average driver there spends 72 hours a year stuck in traffic delays, and, as of July 21, the cost of a gallon of regular gas was $4.46.
To determine the U.S. cities where the cost of living is highest, the London office of Mercer, an American human resources consulting company, measured the prices of the same basket of goods in 253 of the world's cities. The basket is composed of over 200 products, representative of executive spending patterns and including everything from rent for a luxury apartment to the cost of a fast-food hamburger.
Location has a lot to do with why New York and Los Angeles top the list.
In New York, the need for more homes has been increasing since the mid-1970s, says Edward Glaeser, an economist at Harvard University.
"Before 1970," he says, "workers in some sense were paid a premium to live in New York." This, says Glaeser, was due to its reputation for crime and dirtiness. "Now, people pay a premium to live there."
The change happened when the city began to experience robust economic growth that's still occurring, despite some hiccups along the way. Even though business is increasingly global, New York is a center for industries that produce ideas, like finance and publishing, notes Glaeser.
"You don't see anyone relocating to South Dakota," he says. "The idea now is that you become smart by hanging around other smart people, which New York has in abundance. That's why it's been able to thrive."
Location has a lot to do with why New York and Los Angeles top the list.
In New York, the need for more homes has been increasing since the mid-1970s, says Edward Glaeser, an economist at Harvard University.
"Before 1970," he says, "workers in some sense were paid a premium to live in New York." This, says Glaeser, was due to its reputation for crime and dirtiness. "Now, people pay a premium to live there."
The change happened when the city began to experience robust economic growth that's still occurring, despite some hiccups along the way. Even though business is increasingly global, New York is a center for industries that produce ideas, like finance and publishing, notes Glaeser.
"You don't see anyone relocating to South Dakota," he says. "The idea now is that you become smart by hanging around other smart people, which New York has in abundance. That's why it's been able to thrive."
Related:
Actually, New York is cheap (Curbed)
[Image via New York]
Inside Aubrey O'Day's apartment (for some reason)
I love when the New York Post takes us inside the homes of really famous celebrities!
In the paper's real-estate section on Thursday, we were treated to an inside look at the one-bedroom Midtown apartment of 24-year-old Aubrey O'Day. You know, she's in the pop band Danity Kane! (Yeah, me neither.) She's also starring now in Hairspray on Broadway!
But her apartment!
She chose an apartment not too far from the theater and right in the middle of just about everything else.
"I love this building," she says, in a soft voice that's a cross between Marilyn Monroe's and a Valley Girl's. "And I love being in Midtown. There are great sushi restaurants in the neighborhood, and I'm right across from Pinkberry."
The one-bedroom, one-bath apartment with a kitchen area measures 725 square feet, according to the building's management, but it looks smaller. If she feels cramped, O'Day isn't complaining.
"There are big closets," she says, "and I have tons of clothes. And there are lots of drawers and cabinets to put things in."
To offset the earth tones of the contemporary furnishings, O'Day brought in pink and orange pillows for "a bit of warm personality and excitement," she says. "I also brought in lots of flowers and candles and photos; there are tons of them all over my apartment. They're all of me and my friends and the different things my girl group has done. Some of them are magazine covers.
"My apartment smells really good," she adds. "I have tons of smelly stuff like perfumed sprays and scented candles. I love vanilla candles and lilac."
She also filled up one wall with photos of Marilyn Monroe and Audrey Hepburn.
"They're real celebrities," O'Day says. "That's my favorite wall in the house. My favorite place in the house is my bed." But she's happiest, she says, when her dog, Ginger (a Teacup Maltese), is curled up on her doggie bed.
Another of O'Day's additions to the apartment is a big floor-length mirror where she puts on her makeup. "I'm definitely a makeup girl," she admits.
Aubrey O'Day's Favorite Things
* Her puppy, Ginger
* The flowers
* The wall of photos of Marilyn Monroe and Audrey Hepburn
* Her personal photos
* Her bed
Friday, July 25, 2008
Time for a drink
(Actually, I've been drinking for hours!)
According to the caption: Unidentified men stand at the bar at the famous old Bowery saloon in New York City about 1905. The saloon is located at Doyer Street and Bowery Street. (AP Photo)
According to the caption: Unidentified men stand at the bar at the famous old Bowery saloon in New York City about 1905. The saloon is located at Doyer Street and Bowery Street. (AP Photo)
Kurtis Blow's anti-heroin public service announcement
Aired in New York City in the early 1980s, says the person who posted the clip on YouTube.
Bonus: Kurtis Blow for Sprite (1986)
Getting ready to ship out
According to the caption that accompanied this photo: Residents of a flophouse in New York's Bowery tidy themselves up for a cruise aboard the S.S. Delaware on Long Island Sound, July 21, 1936, guests of the Bowery Mission. (AP Photo/N.Y. Daily News)
A quick walk on Allen Street
Walked two blocks, from Delancey to Stanton, the other day...and came across two construction sites. Shocker! I've completely lost track of what's going where. It's wearing me down.
Whistling and blasting
I never understand how we are supposed to remember all this. Maybe, "When you hear a blast, duck."
Team Bride confidential
Did you see the women in the "team bride" T-shirts in the neighborhood Saturday night? I found a blog post on what this was all about: A bachelorette party featuring a scavenger hunt through the East Village. (There were two teams: the grooms vs. the brides.)
Anyway, in case you were wondering what that was all about, here is one of the participant's account of the evening via her blog (names and links have been left out...):
The last thing I recall about the night is having a booty off at the final bar (for those of you that are unaware, a booty off is a ass-shaking dance off competition)…and I might have won. I mean, according to me, that is. I mean, Brand New Booty comes on and no one can shake it like I can. You have to trust me with this.
And really…what is better than spending a weekend with some of your best girls…hanging out in NYC all day and night and having a booty off?
Exactly. Nothing.
Man I love New York.
Some more highlights:
* Asking a crackhead in Thompkins Square Park for directions to a statue and having a homeless man interuppt to give me “real” directions and be strangely alert, happy, and friendly for being outside at 12am in this park
* Going into one of the East Village Precincts with my biggest smile and please be nice to me look on my face while asking the cops if they would take some pictures with us for the game. (they did -– never underestimate the power of boobies in a tight tee shirt)
* Following a guy with tons of tattoos carrying 2 bags of garbage to a graveyard (riiiight)
Did I mention I love NYC? Only in New York could we do a Scavenger Hunt where every area we walked in downtown was filled with people ready to help us with our more outrageous tasks (and this being the East Village most were low key artiste hippie types with lots of “I wanna help” qualities.”)
All the streets were packed with a wide variety of flavorful different people. I am used to this area because one of my siblings lived here (but more towards Union Square and not Alphabet City)…but I could get around Gramercy Park, Murray Hill, Midtown and the Upper East Side in my sleep. Slowly throughout the years I am becoming more and more familiar with the gloriousness that is Soho, TriBeca, West Village and Greenwich Village and many other cute downtown areas. Ah, I love those areas.
But East Village is a whole other animal in many ways . . . Its a quirky and sometimes downright bizarre place…where some streets are almost quiet and dainty and the others are filled with people 24-7 and lined with bars, quick food joints, and restaurants. What a trip a hunt was around there.
Anyway, in case you were wondering what that was all about, here is one of the participant's account of the evening via her blog (names and links have been left out...):
The last thing I recall about the night is having a booty off at the final bar (for those of you that are unaware, a booty off is a ass-shaking dance off competition)…and I might have won. I mean, according to me, that is. I mean, Brand New Booty comes on and no one can shake it like I can. You have to trust me with this.
And really…what is better than spending a weekend with some of your best girls…hanging out in NYC all day and night and having a booty off?
Exactly. Nothing.
Man I love New York.
Some more highlights:
* Asking a crackhead in Thompkins Square Park for directions to a statue and having a homeless man interuppt to give me “real” directions and be strangely alert, happy, and friendly for being outside at 12am in this park
* Going into one of the East Village Precincts with my biggest smile and please be nice to me look on my face while asking the cops if they would take some pictures with us for the game. (they did -– never underestimate the power of boobies in a tight tee shirt)
* Following a guy with tons of tattoos carrying 2 bags of garbage to a graveyard (riiiight)
Did I mention I love NYC? Only in New York could we do a Scavenger Hunt where every area we walked in downtown was filled with people ready to help us with our more outrageous tasks (and this being the East Village most were low key artiste hippie types with lots of “I wanna help” qualities.”)
All the streets were packed with a wide variety of flavorful different people. I am used to this area because one of my siblings lived here (but more towards Union Square and not Alphabet City)…but I could get around Gramercy Park, Murray Hill, Midtown and the Upper East Side in my sleep. Slowly throughout the years I am becoming more and more familiar with the gloriousness that is Soho, TriBeca, West Village and Greenwich Village and many other cute downtown areas. Ah, I love those areas.
But East Village is a whole other animal in many ways . . . Its a quirky and sometimes downright bizarre place…where some streets are almost quiet and dainty and the others are filled with people 24-7 and lined with bars, quick food joints, and restaurants. What a trip a hunt was around there.
15 Seconds of window shopping at Pier 17
The Jason Giambi nutcracker? (At the year-round Christmas in New York store.)
If you're not looking for something New York City related, may I suggest the "Make Love Not War" T-shirt? You can work it into the rotation alongside your WHAM! "Choose Life" T-shirt.
If you're not looking for something New York City related, may I suggest the "Make Love Not War" T-shirt? You can work it into the rotation alongside your WHAM! "Choose Life" T-shirt.
Thursday, July 24, 2008
Update on the East 7th Street shooting
The Times has an update on the shooting this morning on East 7th Street and Avenue D:
A gunman shot and injured a man on an East Village street early Thursday and then fired several times through the storefront of a delicatessen, striking an employee who was making coffee, the police and witnesses said. The two men were taken to Bellevue Hospital Center in serious condition, the authorities said.
The suspected gunman then got into a van and drove to a nearby police precinct on the Lower East Side, left the weapon in the vehicle and turned himself in, the police commissioner, Raymond W. Kelly, said at a news briefing.Mr. Kelly said the gunfire erupted over a dispute but he had no further details.
The shooting took place about 8:15 a.m. near 278 East Seventh Street, the police said. That was the building where one of the victims, whom neighbors identified as Calvin Gibson, 50, lived. He was shot six times, the police said.
The other victim, Mohammed Islam, 18, was shot several times in the arm not long after he had opened the Jahanara delicatessen at 280 East Seventh Street, according to his brother, Sohel Arman.
Neighbors said they believed the gunman had been living with his mother in the same building as Mr. Gibson for several weeks after he lost his apartment in Chelsea.
“He was screaming, ‘Stop talking about me!’ ” said the neighbor, Aurelia Diaz, adding that she had heard the noise through her open window. She said she then heard Mr. Gibson saying “leave the kid alone” before it was quiet for about a minute.
Neighbors who knew Mr. Gibson described him as a friendly man and the vice president of a tenant’s association in the building. They said he was a co-owner of a clothing boutique called Dejavu in the East Village.
A woman who lived across the street and said she knew Mr. Gibson, Loreen Stevens, 38, heard a popping sound in the morning and parted her curtains to peer out.
She saw a man standing over Mr. Gibson, who was on the ground.
“He was hovering over him, making sure that he was hit,” she said.
“It was not like he was trying to hide what he was, or what he had just done,” she said. “To me it seemed like he was on a mission.”
The gunman then turned toward the deli and started firing through the glass. There were four holes in the storefront.
Ms. Stevens said she ran across the street but the gunman had gone. She went to Mr. Gibson, who was lying on his side.
“He told me, ‘I was just going to get coffee,’ ” she said. “He kept moving around.”
“I was like, you’re going to be O.K.,” she said. “He kept tossing and turning.”
Ms. Stevens said that Mr. Gibson said he was in pain and kept repeating “4-D, 4-D.”
She saw a man standing over Mr. Gibson, who was on the ground.
“He was hovering over him, making sure that he was hit,” she said.
“It was not like he was trying to hide what he was, or what he had just done,” she said. “To me it seemed like he was on a mission.”
The gunman then turned toward the deli and started firing through the glass. There were four holes in the storefront.
Ms. Stevens said she ran across the street but the gunman had gone. She went to Mr. Gibson, who was lying on his side.
“He told me, ‘I was just going to get coffee,’ ” she said. “He kept moving around.”
“I was like, you’re going to be O.K.,” she said. “He kept tossing and turning.”
Ms. Stevens said that Mr. Gibson said he was in pain and kept repeating “4-D, 4-D.”
Channel 7 has video clips.
Hollywood returning to Tompkins Square Park (for just a mere 18 hours or so)
Maybe we'll all get to hobnob with David Duchovny, star of Californication!
Sure, sure! Just hope the crew lets people into Ray's.
Previously on EV Grieve:
Why the East Village will be a mess tonight and tomorrow.
Looking at the current fair housing and anti-gentrification movements
Politics as Puppetry has an essay today titled New York City Anti-Gentrification Movements - A Catalog of Failure
An excerpt:
Rising rents in New York are driven by the cultural product of the city - the skyline and nightlife sold in dozens of movies, hundreds of TV show episodes, and by the government of New York itself. That image has gone global, and makes it possible for foreign investors to pour capital into the city by puchasing buildings wholesale (as is happening in el Barrio), or buying up apartments for vacations (as is happening… well, everywhere). Cheap rents and rent control made New York’s globe-spanning cultural products possible in the first place. (think grafitti, Jay-z, SoHo artist lofts, Punk Rock, New York’s literary avant guarde, etc.) Fair housing and anti-gentrification movements will only get off the ground and into serious change by starting with the popular idea of New York and using those cultural norms against the rapid transformation of New York City into a playground of the rich.
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