Looking at "The French Connection"

"The French Connection" won five Academy Awards, including for Best Picture and Best Actor (Gene Hackman). In honor of the 1971 classic's Blu-ray release on Tuesday, the Post spoke to director William Friedkin about making the movie on the sly in NYC. The Post included a chart showing some of the locations...(click the image to enlarge)



The bowery boys had some nice observations on this classic when it played during the summer of 2007 at the Film Forum.

"I wouldn't be able to do any of these things without the bus"

The Daily News has a brief on the M8 protest yesterday. Anyone go to the event?

More than 100 bus riders urged the MTA Saturday to keep the crosstown M8 rolling, calling it the "lifeline" of Greenwich Village.

"I take it to my senior center, I take it to go shopping, I take it to the theater," said Teresa Hommel, a 64-year-old East Villager who has trouble walking. "I wouldn't be able to do any of these things without the bus."

The MTA plans to scrap service on the M8 and several other bus routes in order to help plug a $1.2 billion budget deficit. It links the East Village to the West Village.

What's doing in San Francisco?

This Page 1 article in the San Francisco Chronicle today caught my attention...:

It's one of the seediest stretches in San Francisco, filled with homeless people slumped against vacant storefronts, the stench of urine, graffiti, drugs and crime. Many maps and travel books explicitly warn tourists to stay away.

But the three blocks of Taylor Street just north of Market Street would become an arts district -- some say akin to New York City's SoHo, which became an area of cheap artists' lofts and studios in the 1960s and '70s -- under a plan being cobbled together by city officials, landlords, artists and Tenderloin-area nonprofit workers.

The transformation gets under way today with the groundbreaking of Gray Area Foundation for the Arts, which is taking over a vacant 4,000-square-foot building that once was a porn theater. The old marquee on the building reads "Art Theatres," apparently a euphemism that also foreshadowed its future use.

And later:

The North of Market Neighborhood Improvement Corp. is one of the nonprofits involved with remaking Taylor Street. With city funds, it hired a new director, Elvin Padilla, who has 20 years of experience infusing the arts into low-income communities.

He said artists moving into a neighborhood can scare low-income residents who fear gentrification. But if done right, he said, the improvement can make a neighborhood safer without driving out residents.

"The arts can be an effective way to address tension and conflicts and empower neighborhoods that are going through stress," he said. "The arts can be a common denominator for many different people in terms of race, class, socioeconomics, the whole thing."

For further reading:
The Lower East Side: There goes the neighborhood

[Photo of the liquor store by Brant Ward/Chronicle...the store is being replaced by a cafe]

Wall Street afterlife: "Because even sad clowns are a hoot at a birthday party"

From the Times today:

This week’s news that the city plans to spend $45 million to retrain jobless Wall Street executives may, understandably, have been met with less than sobs of gratitude in that demographic. After all, as the happily divorced like to say, stick a fork in a toaster once, it’s an accident. But a second time?

We're with you. And so writer Michael Wilson suggests some heh-heh suggestions for former Wall Street executives. Such as!

-- Lead walking tours amid the ruins of your past life

-- Become a butler

-- Sell cigars

-- Shred documents

-- Entertain small children

Because even sad clowns are a hoot at a birthday party, said Gary Pincus, owner of the Send In the Clowns Entertainment Corporation, which plans parties in the metropolitan region.

“We get a lot of calls from Wall Street guys who are looking to work with us,” he said. “They want to change their careers. I told them to call me when our season gets going in March.”

The party racket is more than just balloon animals and squirting flowers. “Selling parties, running parties, everything that goes with the party,” he said. “A Wall Street guy could come over and do magic shows for the kids, play musical games with the kids, do face painting with the kids.” There are positions for disc jockeys, stilt-walkers and mechanical bull servicemen. And, of course, the marquee job.

“We’ll hire clowns from Wall Street,” he said. “No problem.”

All this and more

Happy birthday, Cheetah Chrome. The Dead Boys.

EV Grieve Etc: Mourning Edition

M8 rally tomorrow (Colonnade Row)

Last chance weekend at Etherea (Stupefaction)

Tenants at 47 E. Third St. have until Aug. 31 to vacate (The Villager)

The cons are on (Jeremiah's Vanishing NY)

Butts, billboards and Beyond (BoweryBoogie)

50/50 for Ruby's reopening (Grub Street)

Happy (sort of belated) birthday Cheetah Chrome (Punk Turns 30)

"Disappearing Manhattan" and opium chitchat with the Bourdainster (and is the Brooklyn Bridge going to disappear?)

The Anthony Bourdain/"No Reservations"/Travel Channel site posted more information on their "Disappearing Manhattan" episode that debuts Monday at 10 p.m. Based on the publicity still above, should we assume that the Brooklyn Bridge is going to disappear? What does he know!

Also, after poking around the Travel Channel site, I discovered that the Bourdainsters had already posted a snippet of the interview that Bourdain did with Nick Tosches at Sophie's. According to the description of the two-minute clip that was shot last November, "Anthony Bourdain sits down and grabs a beer with author Nick Tosches, to chat about Southeast Asia and Tosches' new book, 'The Last Opium Den.'"

Presumably there's more of this interview (maybe not so publicist friendly?) with Tosches during the "Disappearing Manhattan" segment. Meanwhile, Daniel Maurer at Grub Street had more information on the episode...

Previously on EV Grieve:
"No Reservations" at Sophie's

Why getting around the Financial District is so fun!

Need to get somewhere in a jiffy? You'll be better off, oh, crawling.

Pearl Street!



Liberty Street!



Maiden Lane!



Wall Street!



Fulton Street! (Still!)



Fulton Street is really ugly



Broad Street!



And last summer, Beekman was torn up...back to normal now...

Report: In this recession, not even beer is recession-proof

This chart makes my head hurt. Still! According to FiveThirtyEight.com, who broke this story:

As you can see, there has generally not been much of a relationship between alcohol purchases and changes in GDP -- the correlation is essentially zero. Nor have alcohol purchases historically been any kind of lagging or leading indicator.

But something was very, very different in the fourth quarter of 2008. Sales of alcohol for off-premises consumption were down by 9.3 percent from the previous quarter, according to the Commerce Department. This is absolutely unprecedented: the largest previous drop had been just 3.7 percent, between the third and fourth quarters of 1991.

Beer accounts for almost all of the decrease, with revenues off by almost 14 percent. Wine and spirits were much more stable, with sales volumes declining by 1.6 percent and 0.9 percent respectively.

And thank you to my beleaguered intern for finding this information. I owe him a beer. Or wine.

Note taped to the front door of the week

Somewhere in the East Village.

LES dawn... sunrise over Williamsburg

Here's the latest work from filmmaker Paul Dougherty. He explains the video:

"I'm not keen on the new luxury towers cropping up in NYC's low-rise neighborhoods but there they are. I sped this up to make the movement of the elevator and crane more obvious on this construction site."

Why you won't be seeing some high school productions of "Rent"

As the Times reports today:

Theater directors and students at more than 40 high schools across the country have selected a new show for their big springtime musical this year: “Rent: School Edition,” a modified version of the hit Broadway musical that, while toned down a bit, remains provocative by traditional drama club standards.

Too provocative, in the view of some high school officials and parents. At least three of the planned high school productions, in California, Texas and West Virginia, have been canceled after administrators or parents raised objections about the show’s morality, its portrayals of homosexuality and theft, and its frank discussions of drug use and H.I.V., according to administrators, teachers and parents involved in those cases.

The article focuses on Ron Martin, the theater director at Corona del Mar High School in Newport Beach, Calif. "Rent," which depicts struggling artists living in the East Village, was cancelled there.

He said his principal, Fal Asrani, had objected to the show because of its treatment of “prostitution and homosexuality.” “When I heard that, I stopped her and looked her in the eye and said, ‘First, there is no prostitution in ‘Rent,’ and second, homosexuality is not wrong,’ ” Mr. Martin said. “She made no comment. It was the most demoralizing, disappointing moment in my career as a teacher.”

The principal denies this. In any event, what will Martin show instead?

He also said he was leaning toward directing “You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown” as the spring musical “because I don’t think there’s anything she can object to in that.”

Dumpster of the day

East Second Street near Avenue A.

Is Walmart sniffing around Union Square?

Maybe! Patrick Hedlund has the story in his Mixed Use column this week in The Villager. Best Buy's name has also been floated, he reports.

"Coney Island will be open for business in 2009"

I'm reprinting a comment left by Electricia on my Coney Island post from this morning:

Your observation that you ran into about 50 people taking photos is telling. As someone who works in Coney, I worry that the proliferation of pix showing a disaster zone will reinforce the mistaken idea people have from media reports that ALL of Coney Island is closed.

Despite the devastating loss of Astroland and the threatening Store for Lease banners on Ruby's and other Thor owned properties, CONEY ISLAND WILL BE OPEN FOR BUSINESS IN 2009! Not only the landmark Cyclone and Wonder Wheel, and Nathan's, but Deno's Wonder Wheel Park (20 rides), Eldorado Bumper Cars and Arcade, 12th Street Amusements including Polar Express, McCullough's Kiddie Park, The Coney Island Sideshow & Museum, the Coney Island History Project (under the Cyclone coaster), fireworks, Mermaid Parade and much, much more! Please visit and help us keep Coney's businesses alive and thriving! The 2009 season begins on Palm Sunday, April 5th.

List of what will *definitely be open & happenin' in 2009

Flickr group "Coney Island is Alive & Kicking" with 250+ photos of attractions you can enjoy in 2009

EV Grieve Etc: Mourning Edition

Looking back at the murder of Lee Morgan, gunned down at Slug's on Third Street and Avenue C (This Ain't the Summer of Love)

About the old Fulton Ferry Hotel (Patell and Waterman's History of New York)

Matt Harvey interviews Poster Boy (New York Press)

Another NYC institution to fall? (Eater)

WTF FYI: More men getting BoTox...because of the recession (Daily Intel)

Getting glazed over in the West Village (Jeremiah's Vanishing NY)

$20 million for this EV pad (The Observer)

The photography of Paul McDonough (Stupefaction)

Alex has a good anecdote on (new blogger) Glen E. Friedman (Flaming Pablum)

Esquared retires (Esquared)

Neck Face offers an opinion on Michael Phelps (BoweryBoogie)

The haunted house of Second Avenue (Blah Blog Blah)

First look at the condos where the Cedar Tavern once served (Curbed)

Most winners of The New Yorker's caption contest are from California (Blog About Town)

A milestone in the housing market? (A Fine Blog)

At Coney Island

I've been following the development hell that is Coney Island of late. (If you're not up to speed, on Tuesday, the Times had a decent overview of where things are...and be sure to check out Kinetic Carnival and Gowanus Lounge for as-it-happens news...not to mention coneyisland.com and any others that I'm forgetting...)

Anyway. This past holiday weekend seemed like a good time to visit Coney Island...to see things for myself...



Given everything that I had read to date, I expected a grim scene...



That's what I got. Suitably depressing. And almost unbelievable, really.



[Sigh] Ruby's, I was hoping maybe those reports were...not true.



I don't have much to add to what has already been noted other places...One thing: I was one of about, oh, 50 people walking around taking pictures. At one point, there were nearly 12 people in front of the now-derelict Shoot the Freak taking photos. I felt as if I was at a press conference.



Left 4 Dead? I'll say.



Hmmmm.



See some 50 more photos on my Flickr page.

Jim Jarmusch set to test our "Limits"

Here's an update on the next project by LES resident Jim Jarmsuch, who hasn't made a good film since "Permanent Vacation." (Jeez, kidding, people!) "The Limits of Control" stars Isaach De Bankolé (pictured) "as a lone wolf criminal undertaking a job in Spain." The supporting cast includes Bill Murray, Tilda Swinton, John Hurt, Gael García Bernal and Hiam Abbass, among many others. There's more information at Ion Cinema and a ton of stills at a Spanish-language site. Supposed to come out sometime this summer. (Hat tip, Goldfiddle)

This week's sign of the apocalypse

[Via Gothamist]

An important update on fast-food mascots

In the Subway post from yesterday, a commenter mentioned that Quiznos had/has a rat for a mascot. Heh. Well, I dunno. There was the Quiznos in the complex at 19-23 St. Mark's ... once home to the Dom, the Electric Circus, etc. (No need to get into that!) Anyway, the St. Mark's Quiznos closed in 2007...I've never been to a Quiznos...and have no idea what their mascot is...So I actually looked it up...and unless this is some wacky spoof, then Quiznos really did have a rat for a mascot...one with crazy-ass eyes and a bowler hat...accompanied by something with a guitar and pirate hat.