
East 14th Street and Avenue A … via Michael Sean Edwards.
Name: Rew Starr
Occupation: Host of ReW & WhO, Musician, Guitar Teacher
Location: The Bean, 3rd Street and 2nd Avenue
Time: Friday, Nov. 29 at 4 pm
I was born in the Bronx but I never lived there. My parents were both raised in the Bronx, when it was the country, but my grandparents all came from the Lower East Side. They were from Eastern Europe. My grandmother was in Vaudeville and sang the blues and jazz and supposedly worked with Jimmy Durante. And my mother was an actress and singer. She was an understudy on Broadway to Shirley MacLaine in "The Pajama Game."
I was raised in Westchester but I could never admit it my whole life. I used to lie all the time and say I was from the city cause that’s the only place I ever wanted to be from. I left home when I was 15 and I went to college at Maryland at 16. I was in a big hurry to get to somewhere. Then I moved to Philadelphia for awhile and ran a skincare salon for a few years. Then I came back here and never left. That was in the early ‘80s.
When I moved here my life hit rock bottom and then I met this total stranger, Paul, who had just moved to the city and it changed everything. He moved here because he loved the Ramones more than anything and he just wanted to play guitar and write songs. He told me that I looked like I could sing and write. It was a hidden dream of mine. I always wanted to do that but I never had the chance. So the two of us would meet and we wrote so many songs you can’t even imagine. We would write and write until we finally did our first open mic at the Sun Mountain Cafe in the West Village. Through that we started getting gigs and from then on we played all the time.
We were always called Black Flamingo. We played at Spiral and CBGBs a lot ... there was a place called Street Level, Downtown Beirut — all the local little places. It was fun, but eventually Paul left. He had wanted to add musicians to the mix because he wasn’t the best guitar player. We could write songs and we worked well together but once we got musicians to play with us, what would happen is instead of Paul’s mistakes being hidden they would be louder. The musicians would count and act like musicians and we were two little freak artists that had no training whatsoever. You bring people that know how to play into the mix and he used to get really upset.
Around then I began to hate being a singer/songwriter that didn’t play an instrument. So I learned to play a few songs on the guitar and I got cocky very quickly. Once I started playing I wasn’t codependent. And then I got a job playing sing-a-long in nursery school, so I was paid to practice. That’s why I feel like I’m a permanent kindergarden guitar player, which is my style anyway. I’m a simple writer. I have a punk rock heart but I tell too much information and I never realized until I started playing for kids how inappropriate every song I write is for kids.
I was Black Flamingo for so many transitions and then I got an email that somebody wanted to buy theblackflamingo.com. It was a store in Laguna Beach that did the clothing for the television show Laguna Beach and the Hills. So we became RewBee because my partner in music at the time was named Bee.
Bee was working doing computer stuff at this place on the Upper West Side called AriZZmARadio and they were starting to do these indie web shows, and he wanted to do one, but they said he needed a girl co-host. So we started this web show called RewBee’s world with mostly indie artists and musicians. But within six months our band fell apart and it was really ugly.
The show was every Wednesday and Bee quit on a Tuesday night. Overnight it turned into ReW & WhO. I decided I would have a guest co-host every show — it’s who’s going to be the WhO? Then I moved the show to Otto’s Shrunken Head, which was like my second home. We survive on donations now and we’re so lucky. We don’t expect it but that’s how we survive. Our show is all about rising stars and living legends and people of passion. We don’t exclude anything that’s passionate about something that they truly believe in. We’ve had politicians and the WhO’s are now booked far in advance. We’re also working with an organization called Guitars Not Guns, who give kids a guitar and lessons. Our show is totally guerrilla, it’s totally underground, we have no experience at all, and we keep it going.
I love the East Village and I’ve seen it go through many transformations. I used to live on Mulberry Street when it wasn’t Nolita. It was still Little Italy. John Gotti used to walk around the block and you could smell his cologne. He would take his walks around the block with his friends.
I worked at a shelter for moms and kids doing arts and crafts once a week on 3rd Street between C and D. You couldn’t even get a cab that would take you there. We had to call a car service. There were so many stray dogs and vacant lots. The only time you would walk there was at like 5 or 6 in the morning from the after hours clubs and the only people around were drug addicts and stray dogs with foam at the mouth.
But all I ever wanted was to have little city kids to grow up here, and thank the lord I have two. They grew up in the East Village and I live vicariously through them. They’ve found out that the city is a playground in the after hours. I forget that things like that still go on. They’re in the heat of it all. Fortunately they tell me a lot.
The Center for an Urban Future [has] published the sixth edition of its annual “State of the Chains” study ranking the national retailers with the most store locations in New York City. The study shows that the expansion of chain stores across the city slowed considerably over the past year, even as Dunkin Donuts recently became the first national retailer with more than 500 stores across the five boroughs.
The report reveals that there was only a 0.5 percent increase in the number of national retail locations in New York City between 2012 and 2013, the smallest year-over-year increase since we began compiling data on the city’s national retailers in 2008—and down from a 2.4 percent gain between 2011 and 2012. Two boroughs — Manhattan and Queens — actually experienced a decline in the number of chain stores between 2012 and 2013. Overall, the 302 national retailers that were listed on last year’s ranking expanded their footprint in New York City from a total of 7,190 stores in 2012 to 7,226 stores in 2013, a 0.5 percent increase. This marks the sixth straight year there has been a net increase in the number of national chain stores in the five boroughs.
For the sixth consecutive year, Dunkin Donuts tops our list as the largest national retailer in New York City, with a total of 515 stores. Over the past year, Dunkin Donuts had a net increase of 39 stores in the city (an 8 percent gain). Subway is still the second largest national retailer in the city, with 467 locations across the five boroughs. It had a net gain of 28 stores since last year (a 6 percent increase). Rounding out the top ten national retailers in New York are: Duane Reade/Walgreens (with 318 stores), Starbucks (283), MetroPCS (261), McDonalds (240), Baskin Robbins (202), Rite Aid (190), T-Mobile (161) and GNC (138).
There are now 15 retailers with more than 100 stores across the city, up from 14 last year. Over the past year, 7-Eleven became the latest retailer with at least 100 locations in New York; it expanded from 97 stores in 2012 to 124 today.
Starbucks has more stores in Manhattan than any other national retailer, with 212 locations. In each of the other boroughs, Dunkin Donuts tops the list — it has 154 stores in Queens, 123 in Brooklyn, 72 in the Bronx and 32 on Staten Island.
Among the retailers with the largest numerical growth over the past year:
• Dunkin Donuts: 515 locations, up from 476 in 2012
• Subway: 467 locations, up from 439 in 2012
• 7-Eleven: 124 locations, up from 97 in 2012
• Starbucks: 283 locations, up from 272 in 2012
“I am almost as old as McSorley’s,” says Istvan Banyai, the artist behind this week’s cover. “It’s a quintessential New York landmark that still has a character,” he continues. … "I loved to go to McSorley’s when I lived in New York, before I moved to the woods in Connecticut. It has a lovely atmosphere, and it’s a good place to talk to strangers … and forget the Internet.