East Ninth Street between A and First Avenue, 7:40 a.m., March 1

The bicycle orphans of the East Village

I've always been fascinated by the numerous bicycles chained to just about anything in the neighborhood. Difficult to tell sometimes which ones are still still being used, and which ones are abandoned. Back before I had a camera, I'd pass by this one carcass of a bike on East 10th Street near Second Avenue. Seemed as if every time that I walked by, another piece of the bike was missing. Eventually, the chain was the only thing left. (I kind of figured it was some awful ongoing art project.)

Several years back, there was a woman's vintage bike chained to the light pole in front of Sophie's. It was never touched. Eventually, it was said that the bike belonged to a young woman who did some work at the now defunct Le Tableau a few doors down. She was killed one night after getting hit by an oncoming subway. It was an accident that didn't get much, if any, press. The bike remained there for nearly a year. Then one day it was gone.

Thinking the same thing: NYU dorm!

Funny, how we all had the same thought a few weeks back when we noticed the bodega on the southeast corner of 14th Street and 3rd Avenue and adjoining businesses were vacated. (The bodega just moved around the corner.) Given the proximity of still-kinda-new NYU dorms...well, we'll let Scoopy take over at The Villager in his column this week:

The corner screams out, “Development site!” and more specifically, “Another N.Y.U. dorm!” After all, the location is right in the middle of N.Y.U.’s E. 14th St. dormitory nexus. But Kelly Franklin, an N.Y.U. spokesperson, told us, “We have not been looking at this site nor has anyone approached us about it.”

I would like to add: YET.

"Sophie’s can continue sans 'mixologists' or beer sommeliers"

This week's New York magazine has a short piece on Sophie's staying the same, titled "Dive Alive: How did Sophie's survive?"...Nothing new in the story, but it's always nice to see how much the bar means to people. (One note: The article didn't mention Mona's.)

[Photo by Jeremiah Moss]

Updated: Scaffolding collapse at St. Brigid's

The high winds we had here last night helped bring down the scaffolding in front of St. Brigid's on Avenue B. At 6:45 a.m., cops had things blocked off from 8th Street to 7th Street. And several news crews were on hand preparing to go live with a report. (Putting a reporter in front of fallen scaffolding makes for riveting local news!) No injuries were reported.

In any event, this will only help the Archdiocese of New York try to sell the idea that the church needs to be razed. For an NYU dorm, we're sure. Or some fancy high-rise condos.

Bob Arihood's excellent Neither More or Less has many more photos (like the one he took above). While you're at his site, look around at this amazing photography and narrative of the neighborhood.

Saving St. Brigid's

To be honest, plenty of things need saving in the East Village -- St. Brigid's chief among them. There's a "keep the flame alive" party tonight at Solas. Find the info at the Save St. Brigid's Web site. (Plus, you may see Matt Dillon there...uh, at Solas, not the Web site.)

Loretta On The Roof - 1990

No idea how we came across this footage. It's described as: "Loretta on East 10th Street Rooftop. Summer of 1990. Remembering the day she moved into Manhattan. I miss the Old New York."
Yeah, we do too.

Remembering yesteryear at Sophie's

Photographer Ali Smith worked the day shift at Sophie's in the early '90s. During that time, she captured all the regulars who helped make the place what it was. (Sadly, this was before our time, so we never got to meet characters like Jimmy Tokens and Degenerate John who are featured in her photos.) Yesterday, Ali put up four framed photos from her time there. If you're at the bar, take the time to look at -- and appreciate -- her work.

New York City Big Apple Minute 1980 Commercial

Ah, back before the condos...American Apparel...the Bench. (Uh, OK. We didn't live here then. Still! It still looked a lot like this when we showed up in the early 1990s...)

"Can someone explain to me the advantage of having bank branches on every damned corner?"

The art of smiling had a short post that was in reaction to the news of Sophie's as reported by Jeremiah's Vanishing New York.

Margaret, the author of the post, shared what a lot of us think these days about the East Village and Lower East Side: "...at this point I'm more surprised to see anything that's still as I remembered it. The last time I was at Russ & Daughters, I bought my pickled herring from the son of one of the daughters, a man I remember from years ago, and I said I hoped they would be there forever; he smiled and said they weren't going anywhere, and in fact they were thinking of expanding. Moishe's Bakery and Ben's Cheese are gone, but Yonah Schimmel's Knishes is still there, dirty as ever.

Can someone explain to me the advantage of having bank branches on every damned corner?"

The origins of Sophie's

Our favorite New York-related blog, Jeremiah's Vanishing New York, had an excellent post Jan. 2 on Sophie's. He spoke with owner Bob Corton, who discussed the bar's history...and future:

In the 1980s, Bob worked for bar owner Sophie Polny, a tough old lady who ran a pub on Avenue A. Bob became manager when Sophie moved her bar (known only as the Polny Restaurant Corp.) to its current location on 5th between A & B, into a space occupied by a joint called the Chic Choc, named for partners Virginia Chicarelli and someone called Chocolate. “Chic Choc” is still written on the doorstep of Sophie’s.

Sophie Polny didn’t like to spend money. Bob recalls, “She only got a jukebox because it came free with the pool table. But she mostly used it for sitting on. The jukebox was her perch.” When she moved to 5th Street, rather than buy new, she brought her old wooden bar with her. It’s still there today, with its stained-glass cabinet doors and cottage-roof motif, a popular style dating back to (from my best guess) the early 20th century.The bar used to open at 10:00 in the morning for the old Ukrainian men who liked to sit all day over beer and shots of vodka. Said Bob, “If I showed up to open at 10:01, there’d be 8 guys waiting out front to get in and they’d hand me a bag of shit for being late.”

Please read the rest here. He also has photo's of Sophie's on his Flickr page.

Chain reaction

Local independent businesses in the East Village have had a challenging time making a living in recent years. Here's a group trying to help.

East Village continues to lose its "sole"

OK, this has nothing to do with Sophie's necessarily, but stories like this are occurring all-too-often as the East Village continues to attract more Duane Reades, bank branches, soulless, overpriced condos and co-ops, and trust-funded douchebags. On the wan: community spirit, a sense of a neighborhood, which Sophie's and Mona's supplies.

The Villager has the story this week on 75-year-old Angelo Fontana who has been repairing shoes in the East Village for 40 years. His shoe repair shop is at 159 Second Avenue at the southwest bend of Stuyvesant Street.

As the paper sadly reports:

But his lease expires at the end of December, and the landlord wants to up the rent from an already-steep $4,000 a month from a raise just nine months ago to an unworkable $5,500 per month. So Fontana will be forced into “early” retirement, a prospect that he does not relish.
“I would like to stay another 10 years, well maybe five years,” he stated. “I’m used to working all my life. I don’t want to stop now. I don’t know what I’ll do. I’m not the kind of person who sits and watches TV all day. I like to be active,” he said.
If he could, he would find another shop in the area because he loves the neighborhood, but rents everywhere are sky-high.
“Soon there won’t be any professionals left,” he predicted. “No more shoemakers, tailors — all gone. People now don’t know nothing,” he declared.

RIP Cedar Tavern

Well, we didn't have much hope of the Cedar Tavern on University returning after it closed for "renovations" or whatever back in December 2006. Anyway, The Real Deal has an article today on the former haunt that attracted the likes of Jackson Pollock, Willem de Kooning and Jack Kerouac.

"Cedar is past. Cedar is history. It means something to me. It doesn't mean something to the next generation," co-owner Michael Diliberto said.

Ugh. We had many great times at the Cedar. It wasn't a dive bar in the tradition of Sophie's, but, despite the tourists, there was a similar community spirit. (And we loved Bernie the bartender.) Meanwhile, every day, Manhattan dies a little bit more. Do we really need more condos in the city starting at $1.7 million?

Bonus fun fact: According to Bob Spitz's Dylan: A Biography, D.A. Pennebaker, Dylan, and Bobby Neuwirth met to plan the shooting of Don't Look Back in the Cedar Tavern.

"Read it and weep friends"

Since we learned about the possible sale of Sophie's and Mona's, we've been trolling around the blogosphere finding what's being said. Here's a lovely sentiment from The Vault of Buncheness posted Dec. 20:

My dear friend Deena just sent me devastating news about the east village. Most of us know that the East Village ain't what it used to be. That hideous looking condo across the street from the cube on Astor Place sums it up. However, I did not lose faith. Losing Coney Island High was a big blow. Then Kim's Video stores began to dwindle. But even when CBGBs closed its doors, I did not lose faith. When my favorite diner, Polonia, on first Avenue and 7th began to raise its prices after undergoing a fancy rennovation, I did not lose faith. Starbucks, Subway restaurants and smoothie stores are now everywhere. Vinyl stores and vintage clothing stores turned into nail salons and cafes. Tower Records and video are long gone. Sounds Records turned into a tattoo parlour. St. Mark's Place is unrecognizable. I won't even get into rent prices. Yet, through it all, I always felt the East Village was still the coolest place for New Yorkers. My dive bar Mona's, where I have a million fond memories, may have tossed that awesome jukebox with the 45 singles, but it still had great music, a cheap pool table, and that cute bartender who always served me free beers who shall remain nameless. ALL of you know how special that black hole is to me. We have had a lot of wonderful times there and at Sophies. But, now, this HURTS more than all of the above. Read it and weep friends...and if this does not motivate us for a long and overdue gathering at our sacred ground, nothing will.

Preliminary thoughts on a tragedy

From an e-mail to friends from a Sophie's regular on Dec. 20:

It goes without saying that that item from today's Page Six was badder than bad. Devastating. Tragic. Unjust. And, I hesitate to admit, expected.
I just got back from an extended lunch at the Barrow Street Pub (Tavern? Saloon?) to digest the news, gather intelligence, cope, and curse the moon and stars. After the laughter comes tears. For those about to die, we salute you. Make that a triple.
There's cause for hope, I've been happy to learn. And yet four dollar beers may turn into sixers; flushing toilets may replace the cesspools into which we've all gazed, starry-eyed, on more occasion than one. Time will tell.
For now, I encourage you all to frequent Sophie's with a previously unsurpassed sense of devotion. Raise a glass to all the fucking crazies and lunatics; the gamblers, tall-tale tellers, booze-hounds, stray cats, sports experts, pool sharks, street philosophers, junkheads, and college kids; The nicotine-stained, glass-eyed, trembling, bow-legged, black-lunged, red-eyed, and crinkle-cut; The doughed-down, dunked-up, drowned-out dudes and dudettes who hang out in there. The good people. And Ducky, too.

VIVA LE SOPH!

Oddly enough, this is how she met Dermot Mulroney

Gawker picked up the Sophie's/Mona's sale item from Page Six. After Hours Editor Joshua David Stein posted the following:

end of an era
Sophie's, that dive bar on E. 5th Street that never carded and where I once made out drunkenly on the pool table with a woman who, at the time, I was convinced was Catherine Keener but in fact was just this girl who lived on the floor below me in my dorm , is closing in the New Year. Boo! [NYP]

Trying to be rational

So there have been other fine neighborhoody/divey bars sold that retained some of the original charm...Like the Shark Bar on Spring Street...just got a facelift. (And a lot of new taps...and new, heftier prices). Ditto for the Sinatra Bar (or whatever it's called) on Mulberry...Only difference there is that they got a few flat-panel TVs and started a happy hour. These places only received modest makeovers. Right? Right?

Jeremiah's somber take

Jeremiah's Vanishing New York is an excellent blog that takes "a bitterly nostalgic look at a city in the process of going extinct." Plenty to be bitter about these days.

He wrote this yesterday:

I am still in shock from this sudden news: Beloved East Village dives Sophie's and Mona's are up for sale! Says the owner of both, "The neighborhood has changed so much...I love both bars, but they're dinosaurs now." This is bad fucking news for the East Village.

And so it begins, when depression set in

As seen in Page Six in the New York Post yesterday:

December 20, 2007 -- IT may be the final nail in the shared coffin of East Village dive bars. Two longstanding holes-in-the-wall, Sophie's on East Fifth Street and its sister spot, Mona's on Avenue B, are up for sale. "The neighborhood has changed so much," co-owner Bob Corton told Page Six. "I love both bars, but they're dinosaurs now." Corton plans to sell the low-lit saloons after the holidays. He has run Sophie's, which adopted its name from its original owner, the late Sophie Polny, since 1986. He opened Mona's in '89. Corton assured us he'll stay in the neighborhood but couldn't predict the future of his beloved drink tanks: "Once the places are sold, what happens to them is really out of my hands."

Updated: Sophie's and Mona's are alive and well!