EV Grieve

Friday, October 3, 2008

Wall Street Week in Review

As our nation's economy gasped and wheezed through another traumatic week, enterprising reporters, tourists, news networks, protestors and, uh, bloggers, braved a chaotic Wall Street to be a witness to history. Or something equally dramatic.

Here are some snapshots from the week that was Wall Street.

St. Brigid's gets prepped for something ugly

Curbed reported Sept 25 that the back wall will be coming down at St. Brigid's on Eighth Street and Avenue B. There has definitely been some activity out back the last few days, but nothing major...yet.

From a gilded age to a great emptiness...

An excerpt from Judith Warner's "Waiting for Schadenfreude" column in the Times today:

For those of us who have hated this period — the wealth worship, the wealth gap, the elevation of everything suspiciously shiny and irrationally bubbly and stupidly ebullient, there should be some feeling of vindication. But it just isn’t coming. A great emptiness — and a gnawing kind of fear — has taken its place.

Schadenfreude is impossible because the fat cats — the ones who bent the rules, the ones who pushed the envelopes, the ones who paid lower taxes because capital gains were most of their income, the ones who opposed regulations on the banking and mortgage industries — are taking us down with them.

"In the East Village they’re destroying all the beautiful old buildings"

From an article on exploring Brooklyn Heights in the Times today:

Today Montague Street is home to Joe Coleman, an artist who moved there in 1994 after 20 years in the East Village. A painter known for his meticulously detailed portraits of serial killers and other nightmarish imagery, Mr. Coleman and his wife, Whitney Ward, live in an apartment that he calls the Odditorium. Wax figures of Charles Manson and the serial killer Richard Speck, John Dillinger’s death mask, a bullet from Jack Ruby’s pistol and a letter from the cannibal Albert Fish share the Ripleyesque space with some of Mr. Coleman’s paintings.
“The East Village that I came to know and love doesn’t exist anymore,” Mr. Coleman said. “I like it much better here. In the East Village they’re destroying all the beautiful old buildings. So escaping here seemed comforting.”

[Photo of the former Gaseteria on Avenue B and Houston Street via GammaBlog. Not that the Gaseteria was a beautiful old building...]

Flier of the week

On First Avenue near Fifth Street. Is this some kind of joke?

Thursday, October 2, 2008

In case you're thinking of driving on Avenue C tonight...

Good luck! Avenue C is getting roughed up...And the side streets are blocked off at Avenue B. What a mess.

About that fruit salad at Citibank

Remember yesterday, when I did a post about fruit salad being sold for $2.50 in the lobby of the Citibank branch at 120 Broadway, kiddingly suggesting that the bank was only able to stay afloat by selling fruit...?

Anyway! First, the good news. It's really nice out today -- perfect fall weather. Oh, and Citibank isn't going out of business. The fruit salad was back today, and I took a closer look. (At the lobby, not the fruit salad.)

In my haste to transfer all my money ($5.76) to Chase yesterday after spotting the fruit salad sale....I overlooked a few things. Like! The fruit salad is only $2. And! All proceeds go to the Light the Night Walk sponsored by the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society.

My apologies to Vikram Pandit (and same time tomorrow night for cards, VP?).