Looking at the photography of Nathan Kensinger

I first got turned on to the adventurous photography of Nathan Kensinger over at Curbed. From exploring the nooks and crannies of the Brooklyn Army Terminal to an abandoned train tunnel that runs underneath East New York, Kensinger has a knack for finding the most provocative and haunting images of the area's (remaining) industrial wastelands.

Most recently, he went underneath Shoot the Freak at Coney Island. As he wrote:

The freak's frontyard conceals an entrance to the strange world under the boardwalk, with long forgotten hamburger signs, picnic tables and strange lairs. Hidden in the freak's backyard is a concrete porch looking out on a vast empty plain that was once Coney Island's Go-Kart track, batting cage and mini-golf course. Beyond this empty lot lies the Wonder Wheel, which is now surrounded by the demolition of Astroland. The home of the freak, like the gritty spirit of modern Coney Island, may be gone by next summer, replaced by the promise of luxury condominiums.

My (arguably) favorite of his essays: The Victim Services center of Bayley-Seton Hospital on Staten Island. Check it out for yourself here.

The Times did a short profile of him here.

Here's his Flickr page.

EV Grieve Etc.: Mourning Edition

Saving Mr. Purple's garden (East of Bowery)

The continued demise of East 10th Street between Third Avenue and Fourth Avenue (Jeremiah's Vanishing NY)

Street art and procreating punks on the Bowery (Flaming Pablum)

Going back to 1996 Avenue A (Neither More Nor Less)

Unemployed hipsters line up for chance to work for American Apparel (Zimbio)

I Am Legend gets a prequel where we see how Manhattan gets fucked (Screenhead)

The hawks of NYC are dying (Plain in the city)

Soupy Sales (sorry, it's Monday morning)

Esquared has a post on a new boutique called The 1929 on Mott Street. As the Daily News reports:

A new SoHo boutique named The 1929 — after the Depression — and a place where fashionistas and the down-and-out soon could be rubbing shoulders. The street level store on 179 Mott St. is decked out with racks of snazzy dresses, pants and tops by independent designers.

The basement level has been transformed into an art and performance space by night and a spot where hungry shoppers, or even passersby, can pick up a free bowl of soup and coffee during the day.

“The store is inspired by the Great Depression,” said store manager Aaron Genuth, 25, one of three friends who created the business.

And there's one comment to the Daily News piece so far:

SinisterCadre Dec 7, 2008 4:59:14 PM
This is the epitome of tackiness. Who says people in SoHo have class? Just who do they expect to buy these expensive clothes? Definitely not someone who would resort to patronizing a soup kitchen. These people deserve to be slapped.

Not such a hot spot

OK, so. Earlier this year, the franks place Good Dog closed on St. Mark's Place between Second Avenue and Third Avenue...and the pooch on the awning stayed for the second incarnation, Spots' Cafe. Which I never set foot in. Maybe no one else did either. It's gone.

But of course!

Ha! on me. Jill nailed it in her comment on my post last Wednesday, "Hope for the Hudson's sign?"

No it can't be. You are falling into their trap of believing and hope for the future. Don't do it!

To which I responded:

Ha! You're right Jill! Bet they wait until the end to paint it...crushing all my silly hope!

A quick recap:

Was boohooing the other day about the faded Hudson's Army-Navy Store sign getting painted over during the renovation at 103 E. Third Ave. at 13th Street.



Well, maybe the sign will live...? The last time I looked, the painting had continued on the front of the building. The old sign had been spared...so far. Can it be?



And now...ta-da!



They were just toying with me! I fell into their trap of believing and hoping for the future...

No heedless intruder?

James S. Russell, Bloomberg’s U.S. architecture critic, uh, critiques the Cooper Square Hotel today. The hotel, which opens Thursday, includes a 1,600 square-foot, three-bedroom, full-floor penthouse ($7,500 a night) that features a private outdoor shower that squirts upward.

Anyway! Some passages from his very positive review. (Meanwhile, see you in the penthouse! I'll be in the outdoor shower wearing a diaper!)

Like a spinnaker frozen in glass, the 21-story Cooper Square Hotel billows above beat-up tenement buildings in Manhattan’s gentrifying East Village.

And!

The slim, all-glass tower, enclosing just 145 rooms, makes plenty of attention-seeking gestures. It swells outward as it rises, then tips back. Facets along the side wiggle in and out, changing from glass to hole-punched metal panels. These surfaces look stretched taut, as if under enormous internal pressure.

If it sounds like too many ingredients and too many ideas, [architect Carlos] Zapata molds them into a seemingly effortless whole rather than a nervous assemblage of tics.

He has fused the hotel with a battered tenement building next door, which has been saved along with the tenancy of two women who have lived through the neighborhood’s extended tough times to see it flower.

And!

Zapata animated the entrance by erecting a little four-story tower that bookends the tenement and looks ripped from the main tower at the base. Above, he has peeled away the shiny skin to reveal squared-off tubular shapes in tan and green. This lets the tower echo the ragged silhouette of the long-neglected tenement neighborhood. Its contrasting lightness doesn’t weigh down the layers of red brick, terra-cotta rickrack and dangling fire escapes that give the streets such evocative character.

In spite of its size and contemporary styling, the hotel is no heedless intruder.

Why you shouldn't be surprised if you run into Bill Murray at a bar or loft party or...

Page Six Magazine explains. Kind of.

"An irresponsible vanity buy"

Phil Mushnick in the Post today:

Two years ago, when the country's financial health was superficially strong, the Mets-Citigroup naming rights deal -- a record-cracking $20 million for 20 years to call the new ballpark Citi Field -- wasn't just gaudy, it was downright obscene.

Now, with Citi laying off thousands while reaching for billions in government bailout money, and with Citi's clients having taken a brutal beating, the declaration by the two parties that the ballpark naming deal will proceed as agreed upon is nauseating.

Two years ago, the $400 million deal to call the Mets' new stadium Citi Field was nothing better than an irresponsible vanity buy, one rooted less in advertising than in mad money beyond Madison Ave.

Today, that the deal will be sustained is no different than a welfare mother spending her family's subsistence money on booze, bracelets and the down payment on a brand new BMW.

Tom Lee talks about life in the East Village and his late partner, Arthur Russell

I've been a champion of Wild Combination: A Portrait of Arthur Russell, the debut feature from Brooklyn-based filmmaker Matt Wolf. Russell, who died of AIDS in 1992 at age 40, was an East Village resident who "bridged the gap between the artistic vanguard and dancefloor hits, The Kitchen and Studio 54." The film plays at MoMa on Dec. 19.

On Friday, Gothamist published a Q-and-A with Russell's partner, Tom Lee. Here's an excerpt:

How have you seen the city change, both personally and through the music/social scene, from the era that was shown in the film? Of course there were many parts of the East Village that were not safe in the early ‘80’s, and you were always looking over your shoulder or had a heightened sense of awareness that I feel isn’t as necessary now. But it was also our ‘neighborhood’, and if we didn’t know where the other one was we would know to stop in at The Bar on Second Avenue, or at the St. Mark’s Bookstore. In that time before cell phones we would leave each other quick notes on the kitchen counter, such as: “I’ll be right back,” “I went for a run,” “Be back at 9:00, put the rice on.”

Given the opportunity, how would you change New York? As many people might hope for I wish that New York was an affordable place for people to live…not just artists and musicians and dancers, who enrich our lives with their work, but for anyone who might want to live here and take advantage of life in the city.

Previously on EV Grieve:
Friday, September 26, 2008
Starting tonight at the IFC -- Wild Combination: A Portrait of Arthur Russell

Celebrating Arthur Russell

Noted

Just when you thought New York couldn't get any more exciting, now comes word that Josh Groban is looking to become a part-time Manhattanite.
The singer, accompanied by a very attractive young woman, was spotted touring a two-bedroom duplex penthouse at 155 Perry St. with a $3.85 million asking price.
Because of his dog, Groban was concerned with the spiral staircase leading to the private irrigated and landscaped roof deck, and discussed the possibility of adding rubber treads to the stairs.
Other features of the unit include a dining room, an open kitchen with a wine refrigerator, a woodburning fireplace, river views and 10-foot ceilings. (New York Post)

Holiday shopping at d.b.a.

This was forwarded to me...appreciate the communuity spirit here. It's happening at d.b.a. on First Avenue between Second Street and Third Street:

We are pleased to announce our fourth annual Urban Folk Arts & Craft Fair these next three Saturdays, 6th, 13th and 20th December, from 3 until 7:30, in our heated back-patio. "Drink good stuff" while doing some relaxed holiday gift shopping from local artists & crafters - beating the high street mania - shopping for eco-friendly, hand-crafted, fair-priced, original, one-of-a-kind holiday gifts. Buy a beer from one of the 18 draughts, including two hand-pulled ales, or choose from one of the 360 bottled beers, fine wines, or whiskeys, from Gina the lovely bartender, then come on back into the warm and welcoming patio. BYO bags for extra green points! And small bills are always welcome.

The 7B days of Christmas

Horseshoe Bar. 7B. Vazac's. Always looks nice during the holidays.

Reagan Youth, "USA" in Tompkins Square Park 1988

One of the many bands playing the A7 show tomorrow at the Knitting Factory.

Scene in Stogo

Blogger, seeing what has become of A. Fontana Shoe Repair at 159 Second Ave. at 10th Street and unable to resist the pull of curiosity, steps out of the cold and into the ice cream shop. The door is open. A cashier stands behind the counter while a woman, bundled into sweaters, browses the flavors. The owner, a salt-and-pepper, Pacific Northwesty kind of guy, puts up his hands.

Owner: 10 more minutes. We’ll be open in 10 more minutes.

Blogger: OK. I was just wondering, I’m a blogger. I write about new places. And I was wondering what Stogo means. Are you Swedish?

Owner: The ice cream is all organic.

Blogger: I thought maybe it was Swedish, with the name Stogo. Sounds kind of Swedish. Where is it from?

Owner: We use agave instead of sugar. But we’re not really open yet. 10 more minutes.

Blogger: Is this the only store, or are there more?

Owner: This is the beginning of a business. Please. We’ll be open soon. 10 more minutes. Please. Please.

Blogger exits back into the cold, wondering who would open an ice cream shop in December, around the corner from a dozen other fro-yo and ice cream shops, and wishing for the perk of a free sample.

Make mine a double?

Today marks the 75th anniversary of the repeal of Prohibition, the grueling ban on alcohol that lasted from 1920 to 1933.

I'll be having a Stock Market Crash.

EV Grieve Etc.: Mourning Edition

Bargains!: Buy one used CD, get one free at Etherea on Avenue A (Stupefaction)

Mr. Moss checks out Mr. Hoch (Jeremiah'sVanishing NY)

Top-10 beer bars in NYC (Black Book)

No one wants to live in Heath Ledger's old apartment (Page Six)

Meet Jimmy and Philly (Greenwich Village Daily Photo)

Sooooooooo deserving: A bank gets the nicest view in downtown Manhattan (City Room)

Welcome to New Wild Boar Village (Esquared)

The flaming tips

Hunter-Gatherer found a dandy bartenders wanted ad for that place on Second Avenue and Fourth Street that has been named like 75 different things of late. Oh, are you good with flames and fire shows? Very helpful!

I miss the simple times when bartenders didn't need flames to be a good bartender.

"I am not looking forward to another flip, but here's the thing"

Wanted to share a comment from a resident who lives in one of the 17 walk-up apartment buildings in the East Village that are now for sale:

I live in one of these buildings, and Westbrook has been hell, to say the least (Extell pretty much left us rent stabilized people alone, at least in my building). Now, I am not looking forward to another flip, but here's the thing:

1. The 17 buildings can now be purchased separately, which may mean improved landlord-tenant relations in some cases, instead of the current collective of tenants dealing only with the shadowy PVE Associates and the repulsive Josh.
2. In some buildings, up to 40% of the rent-regulated tenants have already been forced out, meaning the ones who remain are: in possession of solid leases; good tenants who pay rent on time and do not sublet illegally, etc.; and have been through this fight for the past several years and know their rights.

Adding to this, I assume new landlords will want to avoid the terrible recent press Westbrook has received.

Finally "renting for as low as 20% of market" is deceiving. The individual listings linked to at Curbed show that there are far more stabilized units left than controlled ones. I am stabilized and my rent is only about 10% below market. In NYC's uncertain future, it may be better to have rent-stabilized people adding to the rent rolls than vacant apartments contributing zero.

Or I am being a completely naive optimist, and more unforeseeable hell awaits.

Entire East Village practically for sale

Jill mentioned this Wednesday at Blah Blog Blah. Now Curbed has all the gory details:

Brokerage giant Massey Knakal has announced, in an e-mailed press release and on its blog, that the firm has been retained to arrange the sale of 17 walk-up apartment buildings in the East Village. But not just any 17! The mix of buildings—sprinkled throughout the 'hood in many shapes and sizes and with widely varying numbers of rent-stabilized apartments per building—make up the "East Village Portfolio," purchased by megadeveloper Extell for $72 million in 2006 before the company spun if off to former cohort Westbrook Partners for $97.5 million in the summer of '07

The portfolio is going for $120 million.

According to Massey Knakal, "The rent regulated units are renting for as low as 20% of market creating a tremendous opportunity to increase revenue in the future. All of the free market units have been recently renovated featuring new hardwood floors, stainless steel appliances and granite countertops."

Curbed has photos of the 17 properties on the block.

Stogo is a go

Well, now! Stogo, which took over the former A. Fontana Shoe Repair at 159 Second Ave. and 10th Street, is now apparently ready for action! A tipster writes:

It wasn't open when I went by, but all the paper was down and everything looked ready for business. The signs inside say it's an organic, gourmet, dairy-free ice cream place. It looks like every other boring fro-yo joint, with space-age white stools and blonde wood. Very swedish -- like Ikea.

Previous Stogo coverage on EV Grieve here.

Bari bad news on the Bowery

Patrick Hedlund at The Villager reports this week that the Bari family is selling a massive, eight-building portfolio on the Bowery. The parcel of land across the street from the New Museum has nearly 67,000 square feet of buildable space -- six lots on the Bowery at Prince Street. As Hedlund writes, "The Bari family has owned the property since the 1940s, using it for restaurant-equipment supply operations, and stand to cash in on the neighborhood's emergence as a destination for art galleries and luxury development." (Patrick's story wasn't online just yet....)

According to the Bari Web site:

Bari Equipment is a family-owned business with roots that go back generations. The company was started by my grandfather when he came over from Italy more than 75 years ago. Located in New York’s fabled Bowery District, the business is still in the very same neighborhood. It has also remained in the family. Through the years, my father, uncles, and I – along with our amazing staff – have all upheld the traditions of excellence started way back when.

Of course, it’s tradition that sets us apart. Our pizza ovens, crafted with an eye for detail and quality, have withstood the test of time. In fact, the very same ovens purchased half a century ago can still be found in pizzerias across NYC and beyond!

Ciao!

Jeanie

Here's a passage on the Bari family, who once owned the Sunshine Hotel, from the July 2004 Times:

Watching all of these developments carefully is the family that owns Bari Restaurant and Pizzeria Equipment, a business that takes up 10 storefronts at Prince Street and the Bowery. As owners of one of the district's oldest shops, the Baris seem to know what's coming.

"I'm trying to envision it five, ten years from now," said Anton Bari as he sat on one of the restaurant chairs offered for sale in the Bari Gallery, one of the family's many enterprises. "I don't see the restaurant suppliers. I don't know if the reputation will still be here."

Mr. Bari, his brothers Mike and Nick and a cousin also named Nick run a company established in the 1940's by their grandfather, Nicola Bari, a radio repairman and purveyor of cheese graters. Besides selling an encyclopedic variety of restaurant supplies, the Baris manufacture pizza ovens and refrigeration units that are used in kitchens from Brooklyn to Russia.

On occasion, the Bari brothers are greeted by acquaintances who encourage them to turn their shops into trendy bars. But unlike many other suppliers on the Bowery, the Baris don't rent their stores -- they own them. They can sit back and watch the changes on the street without the pressure of a landlord or a lease.

Across from the Baris' main showroom at 240 Bowery, the family owns another building, but this one is not all mixers and ovens. Through a set of red doors marked "No Loitering" and up the stairs, an entirely different Bowery staple is still in operation.

"I can't stand the stink in here," said Mike Bari, squinting his eyes and turning toward the exit. He was standing in the hallway of the Sunshine Hotel, an S.R.O. above one of the Baris' warehouse units that the family inherited when it bought the building 15 years ago.

Once home to 200 residents, the hotel now houses just 40, with each man paying (or not paying) about $10 a day for the privilege of inhabiting one of its cell-like rooms. In the lobby, where a clerk collects rent and a painting of the main characters from "The Sopranos" hangs on the wall, the Baris greet nearly every resident with a warm familiarity.

"We're not looking to throw anybody out," said Anton Bari, when asked why he doesn't simply convert the Sunshine into $4,000-a-month apartments. "If they had to leave here, they'd be lost."

Here's a clip from the documentary Sunshine Hotel:




[Photo via Forgotten New York Sunshine photo via Tom Warren.]

Here's to Walter's

Walter's on Eighth Avenue between 29th Street and 30th Street celebrates their 20th anniversary today. (Sure, there will be drink specials starting at 8 a.m., but don't expect a buyback with such cheapo prices.) A fine dump this is. Here's to 20 more. Please.

P.S.
Love the copy on the their Web site:

THE WALTERS FAMILY
Walters is your place for a peace of mind (well, sometimes you get a piece of our mind). The ambiance will remind you of a place long forgotten or finally found (they don't make 'em like they used to).
You see, you may walk into Walter's Bar a stranger, but you'll leave a regular. Walter's is like a home and the people are like family to anyone that walks in.

Okay, enough politeness, WE ARE A PLACE TO GET DRUNK!!!.

Let them mumble awhile

Nathan Lee reviews Let Them Chirp Awhile today in the Times:

Having heard once too often that his outfit is kind of lame, Bobby (Justin Rice), a useless East Village hipster, tucks into the American Apparel store on Houston Street and picks out a baby blue T-shirt with some help from Charlotte (Charlotte Af Geijerstam), a failed actress in hot pants and leg warmers. Later they meet for a drink and commiserate about their boring, complacent, privileged lives.

“The old city,” Bobby muses, “like the one that I dreamed about, the one from the movies. It’s not there anymore. Maybe we’re both just maladjusted, you know, like we’re living in the past.”

And thus, for one brief moment, does “Let Them Chirp Awhile” acknowledge the source of its painfully unsympathetic take on postcollegiate New Yorkers who think themselves artists but don’t have an original thought in their heads.

Written and directed by Jonathan Blitstein, the movie really does live in an imaginary past, the one immortalized in classic Woody Allen films. How else to explain why Bobby and his circle of friends name-drop Chekhov, pontificate on Bergman, crack tired jokes about Los Angeles and spend all their time either failing at relationships or kvetching about their inadequacies while whimsical jazz coos on the soundtrack?

This sort of thing was indulgent enough the first time around; transplanted to the mumblecore milieu, it’s intolerable.

The Voice, meanwhile, says that while the narrative falls apart, it remains pretty hilarious from scene to scene. Time Out gives it three stars out of six.

Thank you very little

And did you see Citi's fancy gatefold ad with Mary J. Blige in the New Yorker?



Meanwhile, in the Post today:

A new Citigroup scandal is engulfing Robert Rubin and his former disciple Chuck Prince for their roles in an alleged Ponzi-style scheme that's now choking world banking.

EV Grieve Etc.: Mourning Edition

The package of 17 EV buildings that were sold twice in two years are on the chopping block again (Blah Blog Blah)

30 years of Eva's (Jeremiah's Vanishing NY)

Looking at McNally's Bowery cornerspot (BoweryBoogie)

Mayor Bloomberg darkened his economic forecast yesterday, warning that the city's deficit for fiscal year 2010 will come in higher than the $1.3 billion estimated last month because tax revenues keep dropping. (New York Post)

Boobs: A strip-club ad offends some folks. (Queens Crap)

The yule log returns! (Runnin' Scared)

Questionable prostitution charges rock video stores (Gay City News)

Buy your xmas tree with a credit card! (Lost City)

The other afternoon at the Blarney Cove

On 14th Street just past Avenue A. Can't resist that sign. Will have one drink.

Maybe 12 people in the place.

The man puts a few bills in the jukebox. When "Smooth," the Santana/Rob Thomas ditty, comes on, he and his wife start to dance in the front of the bar.

Helene, with a wink, says the place is going to be busted for violating the cabaret laws. The two dance very well together.

An Andrea Bocelli song comes on. The couple slow dance. In the back, another man and woman -- these two much older -- also dance. We're all going to be thrown in jail, Helene says with a laugh.

James Brown comes in. Popeye 86'd him previously. He can't stay. So James Brown smiles, shakes a few hands and leaves.

The older woman who had been dancing in the back collects her cart with the Rite Aid and Associated bags she had parked under the TV and makes her exit.

One of the regulars keeps apologizing for no reason. Stop apologizing, the others say -- you're not in church.

One of the old-timers sitting in the middle of the long bar dozes off.





Five drinks later, I leave. Still light out.







Related:
Blarney Cove (Jeremiah's Vanishing NY)

A new store is opening that people may actually be able to afford

Too often I expect the worst when I see empty storefronts, as if the new tenant will be -- all together now -- the ever-popular bank brank or Fro-Yo shoppe or Duane Reade or ramen noodle house or... (And why wouldn't I feel this way?)

Anyway! To some relief, I suppose, here's what's coming to 23 Avenue B near Second Street:



(Look how they're already putting the fear into potential shoplifters!)

By the way, I counted 10 empty storefronts/restaurants on Avenue B between Second Street and Fifth Street, the site of the former Zips deli. Add that with the six or seven I counted on Avenue B between 12th Street and 14th Street a few weeks back and, well, that's a lot of empty storefronts/restaurants. Maybe landlords should stop hiking rents. Has the CB3 has effectively put an end to new bars/restaurants in the vacant spaces? Is Avenue B over as a destination spot? (Ha. I know, I know.)

Related:
Perbacco Tries to Move into Carne Vale Space (Eater)

Avenue B dragnet targets clubs, cabs, rowdy drinkers (The Villager)

East Villagers say nightlife scene is a nightmare (The Villager)

Former Save the Robots Space Is for Sale (Grub Street)

Noted

In the East Village, local cuisine is quickly whittling down to a single food: pig. With new pork-bun outlets and ramen shops, porchetta and hot dog specialists, plus bacon peanut brittle as a local bar snack (at The Redhead), the area is all bellied up.

(New York Times)

Speaking of pigs, is Porky's still open? Good times!

Head

In one of the community gardens on East Eighth Street near Avenue C.

Noted

Via ComedyJuice:

Don't Let the Muggles Know! - w4mm - 30 (East Village)
Reply to: pers-941491075@craigslist.org [?]
Date: 2008-12-02, 12:27AM EST

I am a lonely, beautiful woman living alone with my cat, Mrs. Norris. I work as a janitor. You will refer to me as Filch.
I need at least 5 men. You will arrive at my apartment. There will be a picture of a fat lady on the door, and you will tell her the pre-arranged password. You will be dressed based on your character. The characters I need are listed below.
Harry Potter: You must be barely legal, and arrive with your firebolt ready for the best game of quidditch you'll ever play.
Ron Weasley: You absolutely must have red hair and freckles. You must show up with firewhiskey.
Draco Malfoy: Blonde. Be able to cry on demand.
Remus Lupin: You will alternate between wolf and man. Howl, baby, howl!
Albus Dumbledore: You must be a proud gay man ready to penetrate every other man present You must have a beard and wear a wizard's hat and half-moon spectacles.
As you arrive, I shall chain you to the walls of my apartment, which I will have converted into a dungeon. Mrs. Norris shall excite you all into the most aroused state you've ever experienced (I've trained her well, so don't worry--if she fails to tickle your pickle, though, I've got a few tricks up my sleeve--engorgio, anyone?).
After I punish you all for being out after curfew, and take a few house points, Harry will escape, grab me around the waist, and begin sodomizing me. With each stroke, he will yell out one of the wrongs I have committed against him (example: "and THIS is for helping Umbridge"). After we've both come harder than Hagrid in heat, Ron and Draco will escape.
Ron will beat Draco with a broomstick I'll provide. Then, he will penetrate the Slytherin with the Cleansweep, who will, at this point, be crying about how his dad's in Azkaban.
Lupin will escape as he "transforms" into a wolf. He forgot his wolfsbane potion tonight! He will have his way with whatever his wolfy instincts demand!
I will then pleasure Ron. With my dirty squib mouth.
Finally, Dumbledore will escape and exact his right as Headmaster of Hogwarts.
Then, firewhiskey all around!
Who knows what else the night will bring...
---
Please send pictures, preferably in costume. I'm a huge Harry Potter fan, and I've been haunted by this fantasy since PoA came out (the book, of course). Please please please help me to realize it!
Also, if you know any submissive small men, we might add a Dobby to the fun.

Hanging 10

To celebrate the 10-year anniversary of city guide NFT (Not For Tourists), Caroline at Flavorwire asked Managing Editor Craig Nelson for "choice snippets" from the first edition of NFT:

The East Village: “We think David’s Bagels on First Avenue rocks. However a Citibank on 7th Street and B would be nice.”

The Lower East Side: “Our favorite hangout is Tonic on Norfolk — great music, great café, great vibe. Also check out Soft Skull Press in the same building. This area is not the culinary capital of Manhattan, unless you love fried chicken at McDonald’s."

The Financial District: “Mayor Giuliani is trying to convince people that downtown is an excellent place to live. There’s nothing here. It’s totally dead at night.”

And some NFT faves from a decade ago...?

The Lanksy Lounge: “Great space, packed with hyenas.”
Howard Johnson’s: “A Times Square haven in a sea of madness.”
Florent: “One of the best places on the planet.”
Tower Records: “For all your mainstream needs.”

EV Grieve Etc.: Mourning Edition

RIP Love Saves the Day (Jeremiah's Vanishing NY)

Visiting the Cafe Reggio (Greenwich Village Daily Photo)

At the Chinatown Working Group meeting (Save the Lower East Side!)

Sheila, champion of dive bars, is out at Gawker (Gawker)

Brooks spots a rarity: wooden phone booths (Lost City)

Yoink! (BoweryBoogie)

"Mr. Subbarao is, by his own admission, a 'cocktail geek,' one of a growing legion of amateur connoisseurs who have turned recherché cocktails — whether mixed at home or sought out in bars and restaurants — into a lifestyle, or to hear some tell it, a religion. They receive their education from, and in turn provide a considerable fraction of the revenues for, geeky cocktail bars — recognizable by the devout use of jiggers, the whopping arrays of bitters, and an almost-total absence of vodka. As these bars proliferate, more and more drinkers cross the line from enthusiast to, well, geek." (New York Times)

A great post from Monday: Highlighting the characteristics of the buyers for the Theatre Condo on St. Mark's (Curbed)

Your morning hardcore: "Bye Bye"... by Borscht

Borscht is one of the many NYC hardcore bands playing the A7 reunion Saturday at the Knitting Factory. Tim at Stupefaction will be playing bass with the band. Here's the original lineup doing "Bye Bye" circa 1983.

Old Hop Devil Grill to reopen today with a Southwestern flavor

The former Hop Devil Grill will reopen today, at least according to the sign on the front of the bar on St. Mark's Place near Avenue A....and their Web site:

Hey everyone, we'll be closed until December 3rd due to some renovations we are doing. As you know, or in case you didn't, we feature Southwestern cuisine on our menu, and so we are taking a little time to make our place a little more southwestern. Same excellent beer, sangria, margaritas and fine tequila. We'll see you in a couple of weeks. Happy Thanksgiving from everyone at Hop Devil Grill.

Yesterday, workers were busy putting the final fixins' on the exterior.





I took a quick gander inside...and saw the many taps still lined up along the wall...

Previously on EV Grieve:
RIP Hop Devil Grill

What's doing at 72 E. Fourth St.?

As we noted early last month, one-story structures in the neighborhood seem to be an endangered species. (And Jeremiah reported last month that Jam Envelope & Paper's one-level storage space is history.)

So I was curious to learn more about the now-familiar scaffolding around the single-level structure at 72. E. Fourth St. (Between Second Avenue and the Bowery.)



Turns out to be an interesting project. In October 2005, New York Theatre Workshop (NYTW) purchased the vacant building -- a former New York City storage facility -- “as is,” from New York City’s Department of Housing Preservation and Development for $1.

According to the NYTW Web site, the site will be "a new scenery, costume and prop workshop. Construction is scheduled to begin in the winter 2008 and be completed in 2009. The facility will be designed and built using sustainable design principles and widely accepted LEED (Leadership in Environmental and Energy Design) standards, optimizing comfort and health benefits to its employees. Manufactured materials with recycled content will be used, and wood produced from sustainably harvested forests will be used exclusively."



By the way, the day I walked by, there was a "stop work order" slapped on the front dated Nov. 25.

Hope for the Hudson's sign?

Was boohooing the other day about the faded Hudson's Army-Navy Store sign getting painted over during the renovation at 103 E. Third Ave. at 13th Street.



Well, maybe the sign will live...? The last time I looked, the painting had continued on the front of the building. The old sign had been spared...so far. Can it be?

An A7 reunion

Tony Rettman has the story in the Voice on the A7 reunion show taking place Saturday at the Knitting Factory.

Located on the corner of Avenue A and East 7th up until its demise in 1984, A7 was — and still is — a place of legend. Agnostic Front, Heart Attack, the Beastie Boys, Urban Waste, the Abused, the Misguided, and countless others regaled the moshing masses at this shoebox-sized spot long before CBGB ever accepted them. And now that the entire Lower East Side is a fuckin' romper room, it's time for a reunion.

Co-promoter Bryan Swirsky considers Saturday night's event (subtitled "One Big Crowd," after an early NYHC compilation) both a celebration and a tribute to the "action-first" style prominent in the East Village underground at the time. "These weren't soft-handed kids from Iowa putting on a show in the most horrible neighborhood in Brooklyn to call it 'authentic,' " he says. "These were runaways involved in bad activity mixing with hardcore punks who were also rubbing elbows with curious suburban kids coming in for the shows. There was no irony dripping from the fangs of cultural vampires. There was no time to be a culture vampire back then. You just did it."

Stop!

First Avenue near Sixth Street. The Cemusa ad-rotation thing was stuck. And Perry Farrell lost his head.

Che in the city

So Guerrilla opens Dec. 12. Benicio Del Toro portrays the Argentine revolutionary.

Here's how a few of the posters for the film have fared around the neighborhood.




Sixth Street and First Avenue.



First Avenue near Fifth Street.

Meanwhile, as City Room reported, there's a life-size statue at the Doris Freedman Plaza — at the corner of Fifth Avenue and 60th Street — by Christian Jankowski that depicts a street performer dressed as Che Guevara.



According to a post on Commentary magazine from Nov. 21: "Why is the most vibrant capitalist hub in the world playing host to a statue of a murderous communist thug? Bailout mania? The Castroesque extension of Mayor Mike Bloomberg’s reign? The base of the sculpture is inscribed with a Che quote that my ignorance of Spanish prohibited me from deciphering. But I’m pretty sure it wasn’t an apology for committing acts of terror and helping to derail a country for nearly half a century."

Then later:

UPDATE: Apparently, the sculpture is not intended to depict Che Guevara, but rather a street performer dressed as Che Guevara. Which I’m sure makes all the difference in the world to the families of Che’s victims.

Looking at a "stunning hi-def branding production" -- a video on YouTube!

From Dexigner:

Anish Kapoor's huge stainless steel balloon sculpture floats gently out of the Manhattan sky to land on-site at 56 Leonard Street, where it is compressed into final form under the descending weight of architects' Herzog & de Meuron's twisted-glass and steel 57-story hi-rise residential tower.

So opens directing and new media studio Tronic's stunning hi-def branding production, which was designed by partners Jessi Seppi and Vivian Rosenthal, themselves Columbia University trained architects, to conceptually mirror the architects' intent while providing the foundation for the luxury properties' marketing program. Music and sound design was provided by Nylon.

Uh. Huh?

Oh.