The East Village per-man, per-truck moving wars continue

OK. Given the signs we've seen last week. Do we hear $15?

The good life in New York movies (1987 version): cardigan and wine edition

Catching up with a good Goldenfiddle post from last week:

1987, Fatal Attraction, Glenn Close’s character makes Michael Douglas’ character a spaghetti dinner in her white on white on white New York City apartment. Opera blares from the stereo as he uncorks a bottle of wine. He wears a blue button-down shirt and a navy-blue cardigan, with the sleeves rolled up. Clearly, he is living the good life.


Later that same year, 1987, Wall Street, Daryl Hannah’s character makes Charlie Sheen’s character a spaghetti and sushi dinner in his newly renovated, faux-demolished New York City apartment. Opera blares from the stereo as he uncorks a bottle of wine. He wears a white button-down shirt and an argyle cardigan, with the sleeves rolled up. Clearly, he is living the good life.

The following photos are presented without comment

Move-in day for some NYU students. At 11th Street and Third Avenue. Sunday morning.

At the Staten Island Yankees game

Last Sunday, Mrs. Grieve and I went to our first S.I. Yankees game of the season. Unlike what the Yankees (and Mets) are charging (and will be charging) for tickets and food and booze, an S.I. game seems downright cheap. So to speak.

Transporation: S.I. Ferry (free, of course)
Tickets: They range from $5 to $13
Beer: $5 for a 16-ounce draft

Anyway, here are several shots from the game and ride. There are more on Flickr. Several home games remain this season.

Wikipedia's whoppers

In the Post today, Steve Cuozzo takes a look at Wikipedia's New York City entry. Let's just say it's not very accurate. Cuozzo writes:

[W]hen it comes to the city's geography and streetscape, Wikipedia can be wildly out of date - like its notoriously wrong-headed story on Hunts Point, which (to the neighborhood's dismay) cites 20-year old crime data.

Other entries read like dumb bus-tour guides' off-base spiels. One states that the East Village "is considered part of the Lower East Side" - by morons, maybe, but not by anyone who has ever crossed Houston Street. Nor was the East Village "formerly known as the Bowery."

Changes on East Houston; coming soon -- the Lee

From the Times:

Months may pass before the city’s planning commission decides on a 111-block rezoning of the East Village and the Lower East Side. That rezoning could allow for larger buildings on the neighborhoods’ major streets.

But the connective tissue between the neighborhoods, East Houston Street, is already showing signs of change, as for-sale signs go up and buildings fall — whether because of the proposed rezoning or despite it.

The Lee, for example, is a 12-story glass-and-masonry tower rising at Pitt Street on the site of a former boys’ club. Its nearly 100,000 square feet of space will hold 263 rental units, almost all studios.

In recent years, rentals on East Houston, like the hulking Avalon Chrystie Place and the Ludlow, have catered to the luxury market. But even if the Lee does have similarly large dimensions, as an “affordable” complex it is intended for quite different tenants.

For 105 of the units, the rent will be about $700 a month if the renter moves in from a nearby location and earns no more than 60 percent of the median income, or about $30,000, said David Beer, a director of Common Ground, a nonprofit group based in Manhattan and the Lee’s developer. Applications will be accepted starting in January.

Another day, another film shoot

Still, this looks like an interesting project...the later years of Quentin Crisp, starring John Hurt.

Activity at the former site of A. Fontana Shoe Repair

What's going on at the former location of the A. Fontana Shoe Repair on 10th Street past Second Avenue? The shop, there for 45 years, closed in late February. I didn't spot any workers or construction permits when I walked by...And there will be no sarcastic asides about bank branches, yogurt shops or Duane Reades. Anything is possible.
If you're new to this...Jeremiah has provided thoughtful coverage of Fontana's this past year.

Report: State housing official nabbed in rent scam

From today's Post:

A state housing official from Brooklyn was busted for selling lists of rent-regulated tenants to builders so they could target properties for redevelopment, The Post has learned.

Keith James, 53, of Brownsville, a rent program specialist at the New York State Division of Housing and Community Renewal, took the bribes from January 2001 to September 2005, authorities said.

A source close to the investigation told The Post that the rolls - which are not public - "are valuable because it gives developers and potential purchasers insight into the long-term revenue of a building that has rent-stabilized and rent-controlled apartments," allowing them to target buildings with fewer or older rent-regulated tenants.

A Cheap Trick post-concert party from 1978

In case you have 28 spare minutes today...here's a video of a post-Cheap Trick concert party from 1978 at the Palladium. Susan Blond interviews the likes of Linda Blair, John Cale, David Johansen and, of course, Cheap Trick.



[Via Anton Perich on YouTube]