Craigslist ad of the day: Santacon participants looking for a midget -- "all you gotta do is dress up, drink and have a good time"

Midgets for SantaCon Sat 12th (Manhattan)

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Date: 2009-12-08, 1:35PM EST

We are a group of Santas attending SantaCon and would like to have one/many midgets or really short people dressed as elves hang out with us. If you fit these criteria please email us back: under 4'6', over 21, have an elf costume or something similar, can get to Manhattan Saturday early afternoon, have at least a couple of hours to drink with us, good sense of humor. We will provide all the necessities for the day (drinks, snacks, transportation (aka subway rides)), all you gotta do is dress up, drink and have a good time. Please serious inquiries only. Compensation is only in drinks (all the beer or well drinks you can handle, no Dom Perignon) and snacks (street meat, slice of pie etc.)

Dec 12th 10ish - 4pm or later if you want to rage all night with us.

New karaoke empire on St. Mark's is just so ...

busy looking...Is there some sort of limit on the number of different types of signs on one business?



And, according to Eater, it appears U2/2U is illegally serving booze...

The paper chase

I love newspapers and spend far too much time fretting about their demise... In any event, I've been intrigued by the use of newspapers in the ads atop cabs for A&E's show "Hoarders." I never did get a photo of one, though. However, Ask a Copywriter had these shots....



Ask a Copywriter also nabbed this shot of an ad abandoned on the sidewalk...

"Space-starved" NYU to also ruin Governors Island?

As you may be painfully aware, NYU aims to increase its space in New York City by approximately six million square feet by the year 2031. Aside from swallowing you whole and likely forcing you to move to, say, Delaware, expansion plans include a possible university center on Governors Island, Washington Square News reports today. Why? "We're space starved," NYU President John Sexton said.

Here's more from the article:

Sexton said he would like NYU to begin executing its 2031 plans as soon as possible. He anticipates the opening proposal to be completed in mid-January and construction for the first project to be completed by the following summer.

NYU hopes the 2031 expansion will make the degrees of NYU alumni more viable.

"It's our task to make sure that the value of your degree becomes more and more potent," Sexton said. "From now on, I don't want to refer to us as New York University. I want to refer to us as 'the New York University.' "

Restoration update at St. Brigid's (with new photos)

Here's the latest message from Edwin Torres, chairman of the Committee to Save St. Brigid's:

"The restoration continues. The south and north walls have been reinforced. They are currently working on the center support."

Torres also posted new photos from inside the church on Avenue B at Eighth Street...





Looks rather heavenly...

What neighbor of Katz's has a new $250,000 roofdeck with private hot tub?

This press release came over the transom yesterday...

New York City-based Town and Gardens, Ltd. and green wall manufacturer greenscreen® collaborated to transform two city rooftops into inviting spaces with great views and green benefits. The uniquely designed East Village Penthouse Terrace and Museum Towers Terrace, located in Manhattan, feature greenscreen® green walls to provide privacy in the form of aesthetically appealing vertical gardens. Town and Gardens contributed to both the design and build of each project.

The East Village Penthouse Terrace, located across from the well-known NYC eatery Katz’s Delicatessen, consists of roughly 3,000 square feet. The $250,000 project, which began in 2008, was designed to feature a play area for kids, space for entertaining and a large hot tub. The rooftop is part of a private residence that had recently been completely renovated on the interior.

Lead designer Eric Greenblott of Town and Gardens worked with the facility owner to develop the owner’s vision for the building’s terrace. The goal was to create a clean look with various levels. Town and Gardens helped to design and install a sunken play area covered in rubber mats as well as a private space for the rooftop hot tub. Because of the hot tub’s location, privacy was a main concern.

“The client wanted something different than traditional parapet walls to surround the terrace,” Greenblott explains. “Town and Gardens was familiar with greenscreen® and suggested using greenscreen® green walls and clips to attach the wire trellising structures to the parapet walls.”

The vertical gardens created by greenscreen® feature a mixture of vines and grasses that, according to Greenblott, only require maintenance twice a month. The green walls increase privacy and camouflage graffiti on the surrounding buildings. Additionally, the installation creates a lush backdrop for the enclosed hot tub while the natural city skyline and Empire State Building serve as the background for the rest of the East Village Penthouse Terrace.

What, exactly, is the East Village Penthouse Terrace? And where is it? Plenty of clues in the press release... and I did a search on Google, but the aerial view is old...



(And why is the listing for Max Fish in the middle of Houston?)

Speaking of rooftops: 'Own a piece of history in this boutique condo Penthouse of the historic Kiehl's Building'

I've always been intrigued by the cabin-looking home atop the Kiehls's building on 13th Street and Third Avenue. Here are two photos from a post that Scouting NY did on the house earlier this year...I read somehwere that one of the Coen Brothers used to live here...




Anyway, I came across a listing for 203 E. 13th St. #PH4B. Apparently this one has been on the market for some time. This PH doesn't include the cabin, though you at least have use of part of that rooftoop space...

According to that listing:

Own a very unique penthouse apartment in the Historical Kiehl's Building built in 1851. This astonishing loft like large one bedroom is in pristine condition with soaring 11 ft ceilings and is flooded with sun. This stunning apartment has original exposed brick & enormous brick arched windows all facing south. It comes equipped with a washer/dryer, built in security system and a beautifully renovated kitchen and bath. The spiral staircase leads to your own very private roof garden oasis of over 400 sq ft! Pets are welcome. Come and see for yourself. Own a piece of history in this boutique condo Penthouse of the historic Kiehl's Building now called Pear Tree Place named after the pear tree that once grew just beyond the front door.

This space can be yours for $1.265 million (715 square feet). But that price doesn't include the hellacious views that you'll have of the mystery lot next door!

The Wacky Wok opens on Avenue D

The Wacky Wok opened on Avenue D and Ninth Street last week. According to their menu, "Healthy food is our priority: using healthy oils, house-made sauce without preservatives, organically grown ingredients, wild fish, free-range meats and poultry whenever possible." (Their emphasis.) Their motto: "Discovering Asia through the flavors."

WW has a tofu Caesar salad ($5.50), a wacky burger with Korean BBQ sauce ($6) and Asian banana split ($4), among many other things...

Noted

Via TwitPic with this message:

"Oy, the pantsless look has reached the East Village."

A meaty role

"Law & Order Criminal Intent" is casting for an upcoming episode about the underground goth scene. Among the roles being filled:

[BLOOD WHORE] 30s. Male. Found in the shadows of a park in the East Village after dark peddling blood. He’s the man in charge of this seedy operation. When the detectives meet him on his turf to ask some questions, he is nonchalant and seems to enjoy messing with them. (1 scene)

Feel free to submit your jokes about real-estate agents and developers...

Newcomers to the Lower East Side have 'amnesia of some sort — a self-entitlement'

At the City Room this morning, Sarah Maslin Nir has a recap from last week's panel discussion titled "The Lower East Side Remembered and Revisited."

The panelists were:
Joyce Mendelsohn, author
Annie Polland, the Tenement Museum
Clayton Patterson, photojournalist and author
Eric Ferrara, the Lower East Side History Project

A few passages from the article:

The influx of luxury buildings and the moneyed residents who can afford them, panelists like Mr. Patterson seemed to say, erase the color and vibrancy of the area, even as they shoo away perceived blight like the suppliers of drug baggies. But if the roof is made of glass and steel and is designed by a celebrity architect, are the stories underneath less “real life”?

The problem, Mr. Ferrara said, is that newcomers to the Lower East Side have “amnesia of some sort — a self-entitlement. Somebody’s paying $3,500 to live in the same two or three rooms where somebody’s grandmother used to sit in the window crying, ‘How am I going to pay my rent?’ ” If they were aware of the history behind sky-high real estate, he said, the pricing out would be “a little easier to bear.”

Yet the very history being rubbed out by developers and yuppies is, paradoxically, what draws them to the area, Ms. Polland said, citing, for example, the Hotel on Rivington’s founding concept: “The area has arrived, but retains it’s colorful, urban diversity,” says literature on the hotel’s Web site. It “caters to the upper class,” she said. “It’s staking its image on the identity of a neighborhood that in order to have that diversity,” officials “would need to be thinking about affordable housing.”

Image via Museum of the City of New York

A Building residents forced to use the service entrance

The lobby of the infamous A Building on 13th Street between Avenue A and First Avenue is finally getting that much needed makeover...



Oh, wait, the building with the rooftop pool and cabanas and hard-partying flip-cup crowd is less than two years old. Hmm. Maybe those Pietra Bedonia stone walls in the lobby needed some buffing?




Oh, and the $2.3 million penthouse is still on the market...there was an open house yesterday on the unit being being flipped for some $300,000 over the original value...