![](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg6Jo_L84rTsGEeJg-rdsvnD-eaMcHJNwxahLk7RfDKa2nBXTjDP3uGKbnX_nzj6dI0G7itWuSnheJwRrha6seBvuH50CSUECD-RCCvPZGVZHsM0NcQUYEPtKMvYcOKb4ULZqC75I2akFBO/s400/sonji.jpg)
is closing...
In 2000, The Village Voice named M Sonii the best accessory store.
As such, it seems a thin but playful satire of downtown New York decadence. Manhattan looks unusually great for such a commonplace horror flick. The best set is easily Mars' studio, in one of the Chelsea warehouses piers overlooking the Hudson River, just steps from the West Side elevated highway. The most notable -- and campy scene -- erupts at Columbus Circle, at a ridiculous fashion shoot involving burning cars and models in lingerie and fur coats. Oh Columbus Circle! Were you ever so fun?
You get a taste of Hell's Kitchen in a brisk chase scene involving Tommy Lee Jones' cop character, his feathered hair flapping in the wind. But seeing Soho was more striking to me, devoid of shopfronts, mysterious flat warehouses during the day that open to become large, disco-thumping galleries at night. There are still galleries in Soho, of course, but the one in 'Laura Mars' is a big, hokey circus. (The director even condescendingly throws in a dwarf, to get the point across.)
[L]ast summer the Holland became one of those typical New York institutions: the beloved local haunt forced to shut down. According to Mr. Kelly, who has owned the bar since 1998, the landlord refused to renew the lease in the hopes that he could make more money converting the building for residential use or selling it off. But such plans apparently did not work out, and the landlord offered Mr. Kelly his old space back starting Jan. 1, albeit at a 20 percent increase in the rent. Now the Holland is scheduled to reopen its taps as soon as Wednesday.
Although the location will be familiar to patrons, Mr. Kelly still had to start practically from scratch in recreating the place. Since the Holland closed its doors, the bar had been destroyed, the plumbing had been removed, the floor had been ripped out.
And much of the physical record of the bar’s history that had been pasted to its walls — the photographs of customers who had died years before, the posters for shows at the dear, departed CBGB — is gone, too.
It was around 3 in the afternoon when Alex Kapranos’s hangover began to wear off. Mr. Kapranos, the lead singer of the Scottish rock band Franz Ferdinand, and his bandmate Nick McCarthy, who plays guitar and keyboards, had spent the previous evening in a refined version of debauchery. They went to a concert — by the British group the Last Shadow Puppets — followed by a late-night feast at the Spotted Pig, the West Village gastropub. Mr. McCarthy capped it off with some dancing at a downtown club, staying out until 5 a.m.
Now both were sitting at Momofuku Noodle Bar in the East Village, recovering.
“I’m feeling very, very tender,” Mr. Kapranos, 36, said.
“Do you have any tea?” Mr. McCarthy, 34, asked the waitress.
“No hot beverages,” she replied. They ordered water.
It feels like a flashback to the 1980s on city streets -- an era no one's nostalgic for.
Overstretched cops are struggling to combat petty crime, according to police sources -- resulting in an easing of enforcement that's taking Manhattan down fast, angry New Yorkers told The Post.
"People tell me they're scared to come here," said Greg Agnew, owner of the East Bay Diner on First Avenue at 29th Street. "Guys are hanging out in the street, doing things they're not supposed to be doing, loitering. They cause fights. They urinate on the floor, There's drug use."
In Alphabet City, residents are seeing signs of decay.
"You're seeing empty drink bottles in the street, you're catching people urinating. They're 'tagging up' [spray-painting graffiti]," said Anibal Pabon, 44, an office clerk. "All that stuff is coming back."
Subway crime dropped by 3 percent in 2008 -- marking a third straight year in which the good guys gained on the underground goons.
Robberies went from 796 in 2007 to 823 and rapes from one to three, but murders, assaults and grand larcenies all declined, according to NYPD statistics.
Vietnamese restaurant Pho 32 recently signed a 10-year deal for its second Manhattan location, leasing 2,000 square feet on the upper retail level of 13 St. Marks Place, between Second and Third avenues. In addition, Su, a Korean eatery, signed a 10-year lease for 650 square feet on the ground level of the same address.
Ashley Sutton, a director of the company that owns Iron Fairies, Wild Blue Holdings, said he settled on St. Marks Place after researching locations in the city for a year and a half.
"We were looking at six locations in Manhattan, but we ended up here," Mr. Sutton said. "The trash is moving out of the neighborhood. It's trendy and has a lot of Asian influence, as well."
Two factors behind the revolving door of retailers on the street are high rents and a demographic of younger shoppers who do not have deep pockets. And despite the fact that foot traffic on St. Marks is usually heavy from the early morning to the late evening, this "gateway to the East Village" lacks luxury residential developments that could help anchor the retailers.