Giving thanks one week early: Port 41 edition

Thank God that dingy little corners of New York City still exist that house the likes of Port 41.



To hear some people describe Port 41, you'd think they had been hanging out upstairs with Dean Stockwell and Dennis Hopper at This Is It in Blue Velvet. Hardly. C'mon, the place has a Web site and flat-screen TVs showing sports, mind you. But! Depending on what time of day (they open at 10 a.m.!) you hit Port 41, conveniently located underneath the Port Authority bus ramp on the north side of 41st Street near Ninth Avenue, you may sense a menacing undercurrent. Which I find comforting. Anyway, any place located 100 feet from Port Authority will attract a variety of interesting characters. Like the hustlers with some great "I-just-got-out-of-prison-can-you-loan-me-$50-I'll-pay-you-back-next-week" stories. Or the people who wander in and stay a suspiciously long time in the men's room.



So there are plenty of attractions here. The beer is mostly reasonable. And, like Rudy's, there are free hot dogs. Which I've never actually tried. Not to mention the bartenders wear bikinis. (Yes, yes -- a few other places in Manhattan have bikini-clad bartenders...)




Has the place has been spruced up a little bit? There are now three 42-inch flat-screen TVs strategically placed around the bar. And weren't there more pool tables in that huge back room? And has there always been a neon coat check sign? (Usually not in a bar-reviewing mode when I'm here.) That's OK. Despite the newish additions, Port 41 still looks on the, uh, rundown side. Which I also find comforting. I'm sticking to one of the booths, by the way. The stuffed hippopotamus is still mounted on the wall. And hey, where did that MP3 juke come from? Ohh! Van Halen! Slayer! Perfect! Now if I could only see.



I hesitated writing about Port 41, which took over the space that once housed Tobacco Road and Savoy Road. But I want to appreciate this place while it's around. In any event, given my most frequent visits, it's hardly a secret. The after-work crowd was split between construction workers and back-slapping chuckleheads in shirts and ties. (And several women in office attire.) Everyone got along just fine, too.

Oh, there's this. My failed attempt at capturing a little slice of the evening, and the people singing along to Van Halen's "Unchained."



[The bikini photos are via Dive In New York City. It was too dark for my shots. Of the bartender]

Bonus!
Reviews of Port 41 by the always entertaining yelpers at Yelp:

I think I have officially found the shadiest bar in New York.. Death Metal blaring, the waitress looked like a meth head, was wearing a bikini top.. Another girl in a bikini top sat there getting felt up by this disgusting guy.. And when I say being felt up, it was close to nudity.. All the while he kept saying "I am the devil, you are an angel, do you want to f*ck the devil" He kept saying this over and over again.. He eventually slammed a bottle of beer on the ground and thats when I left.. This was at 4 pm mind you..
The place was completely dark, it was so weird.. If you are looking for trouble, I think you can find it there.. Its directly across the street from Port Authority, I couldnt imagine this place after dark..

One star? Jesus! This sounds like a rare six-out-of-five-star review!

Here's a more reasonable three-star review:

Probably one of the crappiest dive bars left in Midtown. So crappy it was entertaining. Some homeless guy was passed out in the booth behind us. The bartender was wearing a bikini top, and the crowd was entirely men and some looked like they were on drugs. Drink prices were on the cheap side.

And FIVE stars:

As you read my review of Port 41, please imagine that I am speaking these words to you in a heavy German accent and it is 1925 and the Velvet Underground's "Sister Ray" is playing on the jukebox.

I realize that this request is as strange as it is impossible, but that is Port 41: strange and impossible. You see, Port 41 should not be. Port 41 is the giant hippo head hanging on the wall. It is missing an eye, and it wants you to stay for another round. Port 41 is the homeless kid, who says he is a marine. He has dirty finger nails,and says he has a Polynesian wife he married on the telephone whom he has never seen.

This doesn't even begin to explain Port 41. Go there and you might find dullness, you might find horror, or you might find magic. Anything is possible.

The MTA doesn't care how you get to the west side

The MTA's grim 2009 budget proposal eliminates the M8, the local crosstown route that links the East Village and the West Village. (Daily News)

This week's sign of the apocalypse

Gene Simmons rang the Opening Bell at the NYSE yesterday. This after the clown did the honors last Friday. Oh, and the Dow dropped 427 points yesterday. Can't wait to watch Family Jewels! (Dealbreaker)

EV Grieve Etc.: Mourning edition

"Over the past two years, Frank Bruni, the New York Times' restaurant critic has mentioned the East Village in articles over 35 times, according to a Lexis-Nexis search, while at the other end of the spectrum, neighborhoods like Harlem (7 mentions), Chinatown (4), Washington Heights (1), and East Harlem (0) were written about much less frequently." (Portfolio)

Exclusive research from East Village Podcasts: The East Village dominates in hookah bars per square mile worldwide.

Rehab on Avenue B can be all yours for $350,000 (Grub Street)

In case you need a vintage Pucci pantsuit on the fly, just head over to Cooper Square. (Colonnade Row)

The stuff workers leave lying around (BoweryBoogie)

Don't laugh: This is how Catherine Zeta-Jones met Michael Douglas

Have seen these signs several places around the neighborhood. Spotted this one on Stanton Street near Nolfolk in the LES.

I'm so wearing this to Momofuku Bakery and Milk Bar

There's now a company selling the New York Cheesecake Head for Jets fans. (Or someone who really likes cheesecake.) As a response to the Green Bay Packer Cheeseheads, I suppose.




[Via SimononSports]

Citysearch gets fancy makeover

Citysearch busts out a new look. (It's still in beta...) As Cnet reports, "there's a more streamlined and Ajax-y interface, but a few important features have been tweaked as well." Citysearch has expanded to 75,000 towns and neighborhoods, "meaning that you can narrow down your focus to New York's East Village or Los Angeles' Culver City."

Indeed, you can now narrow down your focus to either the East Village OR Alphabet City! Subtle!

That sinking feeling

The Post gets into the dive bar spirit today, offering up its listicle of the city's top-10 dives. I can't say there are any surprises on the list. Or let's say shockers. Was glad to see the International get some love. Co-owner Shawn Dahl is also quoted. In any event, I always find such lists pointless, except when I make them. (Joking!)

Uh, here's the list:

MARS BAR, 25 E. First St.

RUDY'S BAR & GRILL, 627 Ninth Ave.

BLARNEY COVE, 510 E. 14th St.

TURKEY'S NEST, 94 Bedford Ave., Brooklyn

HOLIDAY COCKTAIL LOUNGE, 75 St. Mark's Place

MILANO'S BAR, 51 E. Houston St.

SUBWAY INN, 143 E. 60th St.

JOHNNY'S, 90 Greenwich Ave.

O'CONNOR'S, 39 Fifth Ave, Brooklyn

INTERNATIONAL BAR, 120 ½ First Ave.

Guess there are no dive bars in Queens or the Bronx or Staten Island. Anyway! Quibble away.

What's doing on at the northern end of Avenue B?

Been keeping my eye on the new development at 215 Avenue B at 13th Street that was once home to The Sylvia del Villard Program of the Roberto Clemente Center. The outpatient clinic was taken down in less than a week in September 2007. As Curbed reported in May, this site will be home to really-out-of-place-looking digs designed by the Stephen B. Jacobs Group, who did the Gansevoort Hotel, among many other things. (Oddly enough, I don't see this project listed anymore on the Jacobs Group Web site.) Whatever is going in here, it seems to be happening quickly. It appears as if another level is completed every time I walk by. Which is fairly often. The two shots were taken just a few weeks apart.

And workers have even been there in the early evening hours.



Meanwhile, I can't help but notice how many empty storefronts line Avenue B from 12th Street to 14th Street. I counted six. Or maybe seven. And I'm just thinking of some of the bigger names that have come and gone, like Sonic Groove at 206 Avenue B (Sonic Groove is online only now) and Luca Lounge at 220 Avenue B. And that lingerie shop that sold bras next to the coffee shop B Cup. (Heh.)

"In the late 80s and the early 90s everybody could afford to live in the East Village"

From a Q-and-A with Moby in Black Book:

People say they miss the old New York. Do you like it better now?

Only the things that I miss. it was cheaper. When you went out you never expected to spend a lot of money, so this whole bottle service, when someone goes out and has to spend $1,000 for a good night out, that’s just absurd. In the late 80s and the early 90s everybody could afford to live in the East Village, so everybody lived and worked and went out in the same neighborhood, and it just made everything a lot much nicer. So now, its almost like the NYC diaspora has happened where some people live in Bushwick, some people live in Redhook, some people live in Jersey City, some people live in Inwood, so the good old days where everybody lives on top of each other, those are gone. New York is always going to be big enough to accommodate anyone who wants to live here. There’s always going to be some new derelict neighborhood where 20-year-old artists are going to move to. That’s what Soho was, that’s what the East Village was, that’s what Tribeca was, and that’s certainly what the Lower East Side was.

A holiday classic

A little holiday spirit courtesy of the East Village institution DeRobertis Pasticceria & Caffe on First Avenue. Since 1904.

Read Jeremiah's piece on the beloved shop here.

Let's talk about rats

Which reminds me...

East Fifth Street update

Wow, that was fast. This is all that's left of 532 E. Fifth St.




Previously on EV Grieve:
Demolition on East Fifth Street

Can someone please explain this to me?

On 33rd Street near Penn Station. A taste of India via the Pacific Northwest? Or just haven't gotten around to changing the sign?

Gee, so much has changed in the last 12 years...

For the post I did earlier on Hop Devil Grill closing, I Iooked around for information on that space's former tenant, Stingy Lulu's. I came across this article in the July 6, 1996, Times that's worth highlighting:

Not long ago, Avenue A was a drug-infested no man's land, a forlorn strip given over to vagrants, anarchists and punks. At least that's how Karazona Cinar, 30, a local entrepreneur, remembers it. "Because of businessmen like me, things are much better," said Mr. Cinar, a Kurdish immigrant who owns Stingy Lulu's, a restaurant on St. Marks Place off Avenue A, and Robots, a bar on Avenue B.

Krystyna Piorkowska has different memories of Avenue A. Ms. Piorkowska, 47, who has lived in the neighborhood for 22 years, laments the loss of beloved merchants like the kosher butcher, the cobbler and the pirogi maker, all of them driven out by the forces of gentrification. To her dismay, the old mom-and-pop stores have been supplanted by nightclubs and bars, businesses that can afford the avenue's pumped-up rents. In her view, Avenue A has become a place for unbridled carousing, where bar-hopping youths keep residents awake until dawn and where broken glass and the stench of urine greet early risers. "Avenue A has become the East Village theme park," she said last week, standing amid a late-night crush of thrill-seekers. "It's now a place where you come to get drunk and see tattooed girls with spiked hair."

By the way, all the places mentioned in the article -- Stingy Lulu's, Robots, Arca and Nation -- have since closed.

And I also feel as if I've read variations of this article about 300 times in the last 12 years...

Lordy, he's STILL talking about the Hop Devil Grill

OK, OK...just a point of clarification after a conversation about the Hop Devil Grill closing with a friend. The Belgian Room, an extension of Hop Devil Grill at 125 St. Mark's Place, also closed. All part of the same deal: Will reopen on Dec. 3 with a new concept, management, etc.

The way we were on 13th Street

On 13th Street between Avenue A and First Avenue. Someone hung a large photo of the what the street looked like before the A Building was completed. You know, the A Building, where people shit in the laundry room.

What banks become

First things first. There's a Vitamin Shoppe coming to the corner of 14th Street and First Avenue at the site of the former First Federal Savings and Loan Association. This thing had been carved up some time ago. I recall it being one of the last Love Stores...and more recently a Duane Reade.




This spot makes perfect sense for a store that sells vitamins given that GNC is one block away on the corner of 13th Street and First Avenue.



Anyway, seems as if so many of the city's impressive old banks have all been turned into, say, high-end food shops, condos, performance spaces, clothing stores, etc., in recent years. This topic was discussed in a February 2005 Times article.

Why build such evocative Greek temples to begin with? To inspire confidence. When the United States economy collapsed in the Panic of 1893, many people blamed banks for the depression that followed and withdrew their money.
So, banks built in that era (until the end of the Great Depression, when banks began to demystify themselves with glass-fronted branches) were meant to suggest strength, as if they had been there forever.

I'm sure the new generation of high-end clothing stores appreciates these qualities in a building.

RIP Hop Devil Grill

The Hop Devil Grill on St. Mark's near Avenue A is gone. Was way too bland and fratty for our liking, but they had some tasty suds on tap -- 31 or so on a rotating basis.



Looks like it will reopen....and be completely different. New concept? Why does this give us the fear?



They were shut down in February for allegedly serving minors; in July, they were reportedly denied a liquor license renewal due to prior violations for selling to minors.

P.S.
The Hop Devil Grill Web site was still up and running as of last night.

P.S.S.
Thanks to Jeremiah for reminding me in the comments that this space used to be Stingy Lulu's, which was there 1992 to, what, 2004? Hop Devil opened in March 2005.

Public "Enemy"

How long will Christian Slater continue to haunt Times Square now that his show was canceled last week?

There will be hell to pay for this

So that was a large group of (ahem) motorcycle enthusiasts hanging out on Avenue A Sunday afternoon. What do you think, some 50-60 bikes in total on either side of the street between Seventh and Sixth? Not real big on having their picture taken, huh? But one fellow was nice enough to finally say OK to this shot.

Still a landmark

Good news from the City Room about the former school at 605 E. Ninth St. between Avenue B and Avenue C:

A justice in State Supreme Court has rejected a developer’s bid to overturn a 2006 decision by the Landmarks Preservation Commission to designate the former Public School 64 in the East Village, which closed in 1977, as a city landmark. The ruling is another step in a complex, decade-long battle over the fate of the building, which has become a symbol of broader struggles over gentrification.

Here's some history of the school, via the East Village Community Coalition Web site:

During the summer of 1911 P.S. 64 became the first Public School in the City to offer free open-air professional theater to the public. One of the reasons the school was chosen to premiere the series is because it was the first school in the city to have electric lights in its yard. Julius Hopp, director of the Theatre Centre For Schools tried unsuccessfully to stage The Merchant of Venice on the raised courtyard facing 10th street. The noise from the trolleys rumbling down 10th street made the performance inaudible but the thousands of people gathered across the street, packed onto the courtyard and peering from the tenement windows were treated to an impromptu rendition of Kipling's Gunga Din, recited by Sydney Greenstreet, one of the actors in the production. (Greenstreet became famous as the "fat man" in The Maltese Falcon and Casablanca.) Undaunted, Hopp regrouped and presented the play two days later in the school auditorium. The thrilled audience got a chance to see the young Greenstreet and Warner Oland (later to play Charlie Chan) in Shakespeare's grand Comedy. Needless to say, the harsh stereotypical imagery of the play was not lost on the neighborhood's burgeoning Jewish community.

In the 1920's P.S. 64 was a required stop for politicians campaigning in New York City. Governor Alfred E. Smith, Mayor Jimmy Walker, and Franklin Delano Roosevelt all recognized how important it was to make time to speak in the school's auditorium. Walker railed against his opponent, then Mayor Hylan, Governor Smith confronted the Hearst News Empire, and Roosevelt assessed his strength with Jewish voters by the neighborhood turnout for his speech at P.S. 64.

(Photo: Marilynn K. Yee/The New York Times)

Shit that you can't make up: Mental hospital edition

Norman Mailer, Allen Ginsberg, Charlie Parker, Sid Vicious and Edie Sedgwick have been among the many who have had a mental vacation at Bellevue. It's more than a nuthouse, of course: It's the oldest public hospital in the United States. Oh, well, now the original Bellevue building at First Avenue and 30th Street might become a fucking hotel. (New York magazine)

Get it while you can: Boss Hog is back

Somewhere in the deep recesses of the EV Grieve "drafts" folder, I had a post in the works titled "Whatever happened to...Boss Hog." They were my favorite local band for years...part of a post-scum rock scene on the LES that included the likes of Unsane, Railroad Jerk, Cop Shoot Cop and the Honeymoon Killers, among others.

Well, I won't babble on about Boss Hog's biographical nuts and bolts and the seismic demographic shifts that have eroded the Orchard/Ludlow corridor. Maybe another day. Anyway, after a handful of releases spanning 1989-2000...the band just seemingly disappeared after 2001. Mainstays Jon Spencer and Cristina Martinez (husband and wife) had a son...and Spencer continued on with The Blues Explosion and Heavy Trash. I'd see the two around once in awhile, in Union Square or in store. But I'm not the "hey, I'm a big fan, what the fuck you guys doing now?" type person.

Today, Brooklyn Vegan drops a report that allowed me to delete my "Whatever happened to..." post. Boss Hog will be getting back together to play a few gigs next month.

BOSS HOG - 2008 TOUR DATES
Dec 3rd - Maxwell's, Hoboken, NJ
DEC 5th - ATP Nightmare Before Christmas MINEHEAD, UK
DEC 8th - The Luminaire LONDON, UK
DEC 17th - The Bowery Ballroom NEW YORK, NY ??

If you want to know more about Spencer and the pre-Boss Hog days of Pussy Galore, Alex has you covered.

Meanwhile...from the archives....


The video for "Hustler" from the "Girl +" EP:



From CBGB in 1993:



An AmRep ad for their Big Action Box single:

Happening by the Holland

Since Jeremiah broke the news on Nov. 4 that the Holland may be gone for good, there has been plenty of chitchat among my circle of friends about the bar. Meanwhile, Brooks paid a visit to the getting-gutted bar and passed along some possibly good news that the Holland may reopen in the new year. By pure randomness, I happened to be by the ass-end of Port Authority Friday after work. I walked by the Holland on Ninth Avenue. It wasn't pretty.





Three workers were carrying crap out of the Holland basement and tossing it into the dumpster. Nothing was left inside the space where the bar was. And the workers didn't seem all that pleased that I was nosing around.

I kind of like Bass Plucked Lute for a restaurant name

One of the many vacant storefronts along East Ninth Street between Avenue A and First Avenue will soon be a Moroccan restaurant. (OK, we're assuming Moroccan given that Sintir is "a three stringed skin-covered bass plucked lute used by the Gnawa people of Morocco.")

Noted

On the side of the Sheen Brothers bodega on 10th Street and Avenue B. This was not here the other day. The graffiti, not the bodega.

BOA unveils new plan to combat rising consumer debt

At 110 Third Ave.

As long as it's not so fancy pants that a taco will cost $5

At San Loco on Avenue A.

Looking at the South Bronx 1982-1984

The Museum of the City of New York has a new exhibition of interest.

Broken Glass: Photographs of the South Bronx by Ray Mortenson
Nov. 14 through March 9

Made between 1982 and 1984, the photographs in Broken Glass: Photographs of the South Bronx by Ray Mortenson focus on the burned out, abandoned, and razed structures of entire city blocks in the South Bronx, documenting the aftermath of a widespread urban economic crisis that plagued the United States in the 1970s.

Now and then at the Rainbow Room

The Rainbow Room, where the likes of Ella Fitzgerald and Count Basie entertained well-dressed crowds on the 65th floor of 30 Rockefeller Plaza, is now in its 75th year of operations. The Post made note of what the United States was like when it opened:

When the Rainbow Room first struck up the band in 1934, the Great Depression was in full swing. Bank closings and home foreclosures were rampant and unemployment rates soared. The Giants had won the NFL championship by spoiling a foe’s otherwise perfect season. A Harvard-educated lawyer from the Democratic party had recently wrestled the presidency from the Republican incumbent with a message of hope — and, in doing so, secured House and Senate majorities. And, by no coincidence, strong yet fancy cocktails were all the rage.

Sound familiar?

The club, which is now only open two weekends a month, is awaiting word to see if they will get landmark status from the city.