If you're thinking about driving on: Beekman Street

Uh. Good luck. And you may want to throw it in four-wheel drive. (Also, I've always liked the sign for the Beekman, hidden there a bit on the right.)

The Dark Knight is gone

At least from Houston and the Bowery.

EV Grieve Etc.

With less than 18 months left in Mayor Bloomberg's final term, the city's Landmarks Preservation Commission is in a race against the clock to approve historic designations for more than 1,000 buildings. (NY Post)

The Gov. has grim news: get ready for the worst economy in decades

According to today's Post anyway:

Gov. Paterson, convinced the state faces its worst fiscal crisis since the mid-1970s, will deliver the grim news in an unprecedented special address to New Yorkers as soon as tomorrow night, The Post has learned.
The governor's address - which his aides hope will be televised by public and cable news stations - will say that plunging state revenues will force painful cuts in state services, necessitate a reduction in the state work force, possibly through layoffs, and require other difficult economic measures, source said.

The city's kitty is also doomed as doomed can be. 

Which makes this tie-in so perfect! Let's go out and buy expensive Depression-era clothes!



The duds say it all - and it's depressing.
Taking a cue from the grim economy, this fall's fashions at Banana Republic, Gap and H&M are featuring a distinctly Depression-era trend of cloche hats, pencil skirts, conductor caps and baggy, vintage-style dresses.
One of the most popular styles appears to hark back to the impish, newsboy getup of the 1930s: baggy trousers, caps, pinstriped vests, oxford lace-up shoes and utilitarian handbags.
"We associate the newsboy look with urban poverty - street kids of the 1930s," said Daniel James Cole, a professor at the Fashion Institute of Technology.
"Given that we're in an unstable economy and an uncertain political landscape, it's possible that a retro style has come back as a way to connect with our heritage."

Now. Let's seize the day!

And now for something new and different on St. Mark's

Alternate headline: You've got to be fucking kidding me.
At the site of the old CBGB shop. (Surprised someone isn't calling this yogurt place Punk Berry.) I even made a joke on March 29 that this location would become a yogurt shop. So I guess this is my fault.

Previously on EV Grieve:
Tourists will have to go online to buy their CBGB T-shirts

Important decisions of our time

What's new on Avenue C?

Bao 111 at 111 Avenue C closed up shop at the end of February because of escalating rents...(Get this: the owner planned to move to the west side because it was less expensive.)

Anyway, the new owners are renovating the space, with hopes of opening by the end of the summer. They were very cordial, and told me it will be a restaurant featuring French-Carribbean fare.

Meanwhile, as the sign reads, Barnyard is open (last Tuesday was its first day, in fact), a high-end cheese and meat shop at 149 Avenue C just north of Ninth Street.

Free punk show in Tompkins Square Park Sunday

More fun to come next Saturday and Sunday.

Suzannah B. Troy has much more on the show. Bob Arihood has many excellent photos here.

EV Grieve FYI

From the Times:

THE Manhattan co-op market has just set a sales record, according to brokers briefed on the sale.
Jonathan Tisch, the chairman and chief executive of Loews Hotels, closed this month on the purchase of a sprawling 14-room co-op facing Central Park, for $48 million, the brokers said. The apartment is on the 11th floor at 2 East 67th Street, one of the monuments to luxury living designed by Rosario Candela in the 1920s.

Wow. Just $8 million more than what the Yankees gave Carl Pavano.

The rich want Bloomberg for a third term

According to today's Post:

Big Apple business honchos want four more years of Mayor Bloomberg -- and are preparing to do whatever it takes to help him stay in City Hall for a third term.

Sources close to the mayor say his deep-pocketed pals are "aggressively pushing" him to run again - his term ends in December 2009 - and are strategizing on how to change term-limits law to make it happen.

"We believe it's very feasible," said one source. "If he decides to run again, there are people who want him, and those people are planning to do everything they can. It is a very, very strong movement."

[Image via New York Post]

Keeping the spirit alive

Yesterday afternoon on Fifth Street near Avenue A. Two signs leftover from the "let them eat cake" protest from July 11.

A message for the kids

On the door at St. Brigid's school.

Is it July 27 yet?

Oh, good. That means it's time for the start of the second season of Mad Men, the AMC show about advertising in 1960s Manhattan...that is seemingly advertising everywhere around the city. Gawker had a post July 14 on the Mad Men subway-ad campaign.



(Coincidentally, at the time I saw the post, Mad Men was up on the site's ad rotation.)


Meanwhile, if you like the show, Gridskipper posted a handy-dandy guide to Mad Men locales in the city last year. (And can a Mad Men tour for tourists be too far behind...?)

[Images on Gawker -- Flickr via Thighs Wide Shut]

That sound you hear is EV Grieve scrapping the bottom of the barrel to find mid-1980s footage of Times Square

It's Huey Lewis! And the News! Howard Johnson's in all it's neon glory at the 38-second point.

Too many people got Carrie-d (groan, sorry) away on the stoop

According to this week's issue of The Villager (via Jeremiah):

Call it “Stoop and the Groupies.”

With the May film release of “Sex and the City,” flocks of female fans of the show once again are pouring into narrow Perry St. in Greenwich Village. But as waves of women visit the front steps of the imaginary home of Carrie Bradshaw, tempers in the community have begun to flare.

Visitors are lured to the area by the fictional lives of the characters created for the popular TV series. They sit for photos on “Carrie’s stoop” and shop in local boutiques. They wait on line for cupcakes at nearby Magnolia Bakery, then sit outdoors eating them on a nearby bench — just like Carrie and Miranda did.

For the show’s fans, at least, it seems a picture-perfect ritual. Yet, in the sweltering heat of summer, some neighbors are resenting all the ruckus and seeking an end to “Sex and the City” tours on their streets.

Last week, residents won a reprieve, when, on July 15, the largest of the tour operators, On Location Tours, announced it would take Perry St. off its route.

On this solemn occasion, I'd like to look back at this post from June 2:
These are a few of the photos you'll find when you search for "Carrie Bradshaw" on Flickr