Downtown Beirut, around 1990, about 3 a.m.

I can't remember when it closed, 1994? On First Avenue.

Speaking of Downtown Beirut, I came across an article on menright.com about Carolyn, a downtown fixture and bartender at Downtown Beirut and member of Killer Instinct, X.K.I. and Bad Tuna Experiment.



According to the article:

Carolyn was new in town, working for an answering service and as an occassional punk extra in clueless Hollywood versions of the Lower East Side. She spent the nights she wasn't working on the benches in Tompkins Square, or on the stoops around Stromboli's Pizza on St. Mark's Place. She didn't have enough cash to get into the clubs very often. Drink of choice: a forty-ounce Bud.

The article talks about her bands and early years in the neighborhood. And whatever happened to her?

Carolyn resumed her long-interrupted college career and graduated summa cum laude from Hunter College. She got married. She studied for a PhD in English (specializing in Medieval Germanic Languages), wrote grammar exercises for college textbooks, and appeared on Jeopardy. (She won the trip — not the money.)

Carolyn is now the mother of a daughter by the name of Harriet, has a house in the woods, and is a Senior Editor for a major textbook publisher in New York City. Unlike many of her contemporaries on the Lower East Side, she survived. This is her hidden past.

And here's BTE with "Beer Picnic."

Window-washing day at the Empire State Building

This gives me the creeps. I hate heights.

A sign that I like

On 14th Street between Avenue A and Avenue B. Check out the old telephone exchange -- OR 3-4786.

Three other signs that I've always liked

Yes, all obvious ones...But I wanted to start the new year with an appreciation of some classic-looking signs.

The Parkside, Houston and Attorney.



Veniero's, First Avenue at 11th Street.



Smith's, 44th Street and Eighth Avenue.

Two signs that I like on Essex Street

Next door to each other. I'm curious if the Dembitzer Bros. are still shipping all over the world...

My Kinda Town

Bobby Steele and the Undead. Tompkins Square Park, July 2006. For everyone, like me, who's out of town at the moment.

Smokes and smiles

No secret how expensive cigarettes are...funny why the brass at the Mobil station on Avenue C and Houston thinks advertising the not-a-bargain price might lure in some motorists...



Meanwhile, remember to smile.

Save the M8

Scoopy has the following item in this week's issue of The Villager:

East Village native Quinn Raymond reports that COBATA (Coalition of Block and Tenant Associations) has started a new Web site to save the M8, the bus line linking the West Village and the East Village. The MTA wants to curtail the route as part of their plan to close a moronic $790 billion* budget gap.

* an EV Grieve estimation

Squats vs. the city

Also in The Villager this week: An interesting piece by Lincoln Anderson titled "Former squats are worth lots, but residents can’t cash in."

[Photo of 209 E. Seventh St. from the mid-1980s by Fly via The Villager]

Things to do if you're really bored

Measure this distance! On First Avenue between 10th Street and 11th Street.



Seems like more than 75 feet to me.

Here's to your New Year's resolutions!

Happy New Year