Wow -- St. Brigid's is SAVED (hallelujah!)

Just what the neighborhood needed. Amazing news.

The City Room has the story:

Donor Gives $20 Million to Save St. Brigid’s
By Sewell Chan

An anonymous donor has come to the rescue of St. Brigid’s Roman Catholic Church in the East Village, saving the building — which has presided over Tompkins Square Park since 1848 — from demolition and making it possible for the structure to be reopened as a parish church.
The Archdiocese of New York announced this morning that a donor had come forward with an “unexpected but very welcome gift” after a private meeting with Cardinal Edward M. Egan, the archbishop of New York.
The gift includes $10 million to restore the building, at 119 Avenue B; $2 million to establish an endowment for the parish “so that it might best meet the religious and spiritual needs of the people living in the community”; and $8 million to support the St. Brigid’s School and other Catholic schools in need.
Cardinal Egan expressed gratitude in a statement:
This magnificent gift will make it possible for Saint Brigid’s Church to be fittingly restored with its significant structural problems properly addressed. The two additional gifts, to create an endowment for the parish and to support the parish school, are a powerful testament to the donor’s goodness and understanding. He has my heartfelt gratitude, as I recently told him at a meeting in my residence.
The church was built by Irish immigrants who had fled the Potato Famine in the 1840s. Financial hardship has evidently been a longstanding part of the parish’s history. An 1889 article [pdf] in The Times reported that the parish was finally consecrated after a 40-year effort to repay its debts.
The church has witnessed momentous changes in the neighborhood. In 1991, the pastor of the church and two other clergymen were arrested on disorderly conduct charges when they crossed police lines to deliver food to protesters holed up in an apartment near Tompkins Square Park, which was the site of clashes between protesters and the police. In 1995, Pope John Paul II visited St. Brigid’s School — which was already suffering from declining enrollment — during a pastoral visit to the United States.
The church’s main building closed in 2001 because of structural problems, and the final Mass, in the basement of the Catholic school next door, was held in 2004. Despite fund-raising efforts, protests by parishioners and lamentations by Mary Gordon, a writer and memoirist who teaches at Barnard College, the church was scheduled to be closed. But supporters of the church filed a lawsuit, and in 2006, a day after demolition work began, a Manhattan judge issued a temporary restraining order halting the work.
Joseph Zwilling, a spokesman for the archdiocese, said that a precise date for reopening the parish had not yet been set.
“We obviously need to talk to priests in the area,” Mr. Zwilling said in a phone interview this morning. “It’s also going to take some time to restore the building. This is something that’s going to take months, at the very least, if not a couple of years. We can’t really tell yet. We’ve got architects who are starting to develop plans. Then we’re going to have to hire construction firms to do the work. There are significant structural problems that need to be repaired.”

Holy Fucking Shit. (Oops. Sorry God. But c'mon!)



[Updated] So this is all sinking in a little bit. Jeremiah floated the idea that perhaps Matt Dillon was the guardian angel. Interesting idea. (Does he have this kind of money? I helped the cause by buying multiple copies of Wild Things.) For whatever reasons, Dillon has been an ardent supporter to help save the church from the evil Catholics who likely wanted to turn it into another NYU dorm or condo to help pay for legal bills for you know what. (I'm Catholic, or was, so I know what.) OK, sarcasm aside, good for Dillon for helping out the Committee to Save St. Brigid's. And thank goodness for them. Without all their work, the church would have been destroyed years back.

With that extra $$$, you can buy two ounces of popcorn

Still, at least someone came to their senses for once. (And what's a movie ticket going for these days? Think I paid $11.75 to see the art-house sensation, Iron Man.)

Anyway, as the Post reports:

A movie-theater chain that stopped offering reduced-price tickets for kids and seniors at a Manhattan cinema did an about-face yesterday - and said it will restore them.

Clearview Cinemas, which last week quit offering discount tickets for children and seniors at its theater on First Avenue and 62nd Street, said it will restore the discounts.

Clearview Cinemas, which operates 52 movie theaters in the New York metro area, didn't explain its change of heart.

"Clearview did experiment with certain discount eliminations at a few select theatres," spokeswoman Kim Kerns said in a statement.

"Upon initial review, we have determined that we will return to our previous discounts at these theaters.

"We note that at the vast majority of Clearview theaters, the discounts remained in place and were never changed."

I suspect that the Post created this flap on their own just so they could run this headline:

'NO-KIDDIE' FLIX-TIX NIX

Here's the article from yesterday reporting on the increase.

Excerpt:

"I feel like everywhere I go, I'm getting nickeled-and-dimed these days," said Jack Miller, 40, who took his 7-year-old son, Benjamin, to see "The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian" at the Clearview yesterday afternoon, only to find that a children's ticket had shot up $2.50.

Is this really such a bad thing?

From the wire!

Public bathrooms in NYC subway close at midnight

NEW YORK (AP) -- New York City bar-hoppers heading home may want to heed nature's call before getting on the subway - or suffer for the entire ride.

New York City Transit has been shutting the 78 public bathrooms in the subway system between the hours of midnight and 5 a.m. for the past few weeks. Officials say the idea is to guarantee cleaning crew access during those hours.

Straphanger advocate Gene Russianoff says the bathrooms should seldom be closed.

Subway riders complain that the timing of the closures coincides with the hours that bars and clubs get out.

Rider Herby Campbell pointed out that the alternative to the public facilities - grabbing a corner for relief - could get you locked up.

The Tower of Toys lives for one more day (part of the Tower, anyway)

Well, it looks like Eddie's iconic tower will be up for at least one more day. I was there just after 6 tonight. There was a light rain. A few people scurried by, cursing that they didn't have an umbrella. I stood there for a few minutes. Depressed. A woman came by and stopped. "They're really taking it down, huh?" It wasn't really a question she wanted answered. "Fuck." And she walked away.

Was happy to come home and read Jeremiah's account on how the Tower was suitably stubborn earlier today while the city continued to tear it down.

"If you are at the corner of Bowery and Houston, and think about what it was like 10 to 15 years ago compared with today, you couldn’t recognize it"

As it was widely reported, the National Trust for Historic Preservation designated the Lower East Side as one of the 11 most endangered places in America.

In a City Room posting this afternoon, the Times asks: " 'Endangered’ Lower East Side? What’s New, Some Ask."

From the post:

Suzanne Wasserman, a historian and filmmaker at the Gotham Center for New York City History at the City University of New York Graduate Center, was similarly pragmatic about the Lower East Side having already been transformed.

“It is incredible, the changes that have gone on there in the last five to 10 years,” she said in a phone interview. “I would say the neighborhood is almost unrecognizable. If you drive south down Bowery, you almost have a sense of dislocation. If you are at the corner of Bowery and Houston, and think about what it was like 10 to 15 years ago compared with today, you couldn’t recognize it. Personally I find that sad, but we live a capitalistic society.”

By the way, photographer Brian Rose has some great shots of the LES here and here.

What movies people in the 10009 zip code are watching

Joshua Stein, a former writer for Gawker, has a nice item on his site, My Memoirs, in which he looks at the NetFlix feature that allows you to search for favorites by area code. He did this for his zip code in Williamsburg.

So I was curious about my area code, 10009. And?

Here's what people in 10009 are watching:

1. Next Stop, Greenwich Village

2. Barefoot in the Park

3. As Tears Go By (Mongkok Carmen / Wong gok ka moon / Wang jiao ka men)

4. Barbarians at the Gate

5.1900

6. Sunday Bloody Sunday

7. The Country Girl

8. Basquiat

9. The 39 Steps

10. The Panic in Needle Park

Hmm. Respectable enough. Given some of the people I've seen move in lately, I figured an Adam Sandler comedy would have made the list.

[Via Gawker]

John Varvatos saw the light

The Post has a special commercial real estate section today. (And it's not online.) The cover story is titled "New Lease of Life," about how landmark buildings require special tenants.

Here's a passage from the article:

Even though CBGBs was not landmarked and he could have ripped it all out, John Varvatos maintained in his shop many of the funky features of the former punk palace.

"John loves music anyway and it was perfect because so much of his business is entertainment related," said his broker, Robert Cohen, executive vice president of Robert K. Futterman & Associates. "We ... had been looking for a second location but uptown, and even if it wasn't CBGB, the Bowery wouldn't have been an option."

Cohen noted that nobody wanted to install a bank or an "ugly" restaurant or anything that would degrade the character and the history of what had taken place in the building.

"John saw the light," Cohen said.

In fact, brokers all said that if a client walks into a historical space and doesn't "get it," the space won't work for them.

Real estate update: "Much of Manhattan continues humming along"

The Wall Street Journal has a piece today on cities where home prices on holding up. While the housing market may be soft in, say, San Francisco, to no surprise, you won't many bargains in Manhattan.



According to the Journal:

While New York's commuter market -- which includes suburban New York, New Jersey and Connecticut -- is down about 8% from its peak in mid-2006, much of Manhattan continues humming along. Neighborhoods such as SoHo, the Lower East Side, Greenwich Village, Chelsea, Murray Hill, the Upper West Side and Harlem are all up in the past year, according to DataQuick's Zip Code analysis.

Bidding wars still happen. Toni Haber, an executive vice president at Prudential Douglas Elliman, a New York City real-estate firm, says 60 people waited in line recently at an open house to view a three-bedroom apartment in Greenwich Village. The owner had four competing offers within the week, and agreed to sell for about $2.5 million -- $300,000 over the asking price.

Part of the city's strength comes from the fact that few buyers were investing in properties to flip them. Moreover, many apartment buildings in New York aren't condominiums but co-ops, which impose financial demands on potential buyers far more rigorous than banks do -- which helps keep the number of foreclosures down. In addition, foreign investors have been exploiting the weak dollar by grabbing Manhattan real estate.
One area of weakness: the Financial District in Lower Manhattan, where median prices are down, in part because of an abundance of new construction in the area.

Those areas of Brooklyn that are close to Manhattan are also holding up well. On the periphery, places like Jamaica, Queens; parts of the Bronx; and nearby New Jersey towns such as Jersey City and Hoboken are off between 3% and 14%.

The Tower of Toys is coming down

I left work a little early today to swing by the community garden at 6th Street and Avenue B. As Jeremiah noted earlier today, the city started removing the iconic Tower of Toys that was created by Eddie Boros some 20-plus years ago. I walked by around 5:30. Work was done for the day. The garden was locked up. The dumpster sat alone. No one was milling about. In the 10 or so minutes that I stood there, not one person stopped or even paused to look at what was left. I guess I was expecting more of a scene.

Meanwhile, I can't tell how much has been removed. (Hmm...20 feet? It's roughly 65 feet tall.) Whatever, there's a lot of work left when the destruction returns tomorrow morning.





Curbed has more photos from the afternoon here.

All this made me want to watch the opening to "NYPD Blue" again...right before James McDaniel gets his intro...



Earlier on EV Grieve:
"This is one of the last vestiges of the anarchistic, crazy Lower East Side"

New York Post attempts to relate to the economic struggles of the common family man trying to make a living in New York City

The Post has a piece today that so many of us can relate to here in the city: Everything is just getting so expensive.

YIKES! HIKES HIT $1,000+ A MONTH
BLAME FOOD AS MANHATTAN FAMILY'S BILLS SURGE
By JEREMY OLSHAN

The cost of living for a typical Manhattan family has shot up in the past year - just ask Gary Foodim.

Foodim, 37, his wife and two kids saw their expenses increase well over $1,000 in April compared to the same month last year.

Of course, this story runs on the same day that the paper ups its price from 25 to 50 cents. Thanks, Rupert!

[Updated] "Artists, filmmakers, movie theaters — we're getting pushed out of Manhattan"

That's Ray Privett, programmer at the Two Boots Pioneer Theater. In a New York Sun feature today, Privett discusses his latest project: the Queensbridge Theater. According to the article, "As envisioned, Queensbridge will occupy an entire building in Long Island City housing a restaurant, a dance floor, and a space for concerts and performances. Mr. Privett said the venue, which is scheduled to open in the fall, will ideally remain open for 20 or 21 hours a day and cater to both Manhattanites and local residents."

More from the article:

It is yet unknown whether Mr. Privett's decision to remain involved in the local film scene will help to assuage mounting fears that Manhattan is no longer a place where independent artists can thrive. Queensbridge, for starters, has left the borough entirely.

"This is all definitely part of the general trend," Mr. Privett said. "With Queensbridge, I'm working with a lot of people from the Lower East Side who can no longer continue having things on the Lower East Side. People in the film world are going to Texas and Germany. Artists, filmmakers, movie theaters — we're getting pushed out of Manhattan, and my evolution is yet more proof of that."

[Updated] Ray Privett left a comment to this post...He had posted a few clarifications to the Sun article:

The Pioneer is still open. My departure from the Pioneer did not close the Pioneer, nor did the two things coincide. Indeed, my successors booked the three films mentioned in the first paragraph of Mr. Snyder’s article. Clearly, the Pioneer can do interesting things without me. Hopefully they continue to. Good luck to them.

Moreover, the Lower East Side’s gentrification did not cause me to leave the Pioneer. I have never claimed it did.

I left the Pioneer because professional opportunities emerged at the Queensbridge Theater - which is not a movie theater but a performing arts club, and which is now where the bulk of my efforts have shifted. Meanwhile, in film related endeavors, I felt I could be more effective as my own boss.

However, while gentrification did not cause my shift to Queens, that shift does coincide with the general trend of Lower East Side arts people relocating to the outer boroughs. For example, several of my colleagues in Queensbridge have tilted much of their work to the outer boroughs.

Nonetheless, they still sometimes put on shows in the Lower East Side and elsewhere in Manhattan. Many will continue to do so; from time to time, I know I will, too.

Looking at "a cozy downtown watering hole with an uptown look"

In the Sunday Pulse section of the New York Post, we're taken on a cozy tour of the Bowery Wine Company, which Bruce Willis has something to do with:

WHEN this boxy nouveau wine lounge (and the sterile luxury condo complex that houses it) replaced a longtime, unkempt Bowery lot in early April, owners and lifelong New York City residents Chris Sileo and Lenny Linar were befuddled to hear locals complain that their little watering hole would ruin the neighborhood. Now a buzzing after-work hangout for downtown yuppies and longtime locals alike, the 124-person haunt is a cozy downtown watering hole with an uptown look.

This "Making the Scene" feature also points out that the CD jukebox offers classic rock from Springsteen and the Stones. And a bunch actors from The Sopranos -- including James Gandolfini -- "have all but made this their real-life Vesuvio's." And the $9-$13 panini menu is an "after-work hit."

Take your VIP tour here.

Previously:

"We want to show our opposition to right-wing Republicans opening yuppie wine bars in our neighborhood"

Articles that I won't be reading today (unless I'm aiming to get my blood pressure around 210/140)

Page Six Magazine, which is FREE every Sunday in the New York Post (even though you pay $1 for the paper), devotes a good portion of the magazine to this under-the-rader independent film called Sex and the City. (Per usual, none of the content from the magazine is online.) The coverline! "Sex Symbols: How Carrie, Miranda, Samantha and Charlotte defined a generation." Yessirree!

But that's not all! We get to meet the men of Sex and the City...and "Confessions of the Real Carrie." Ohh! Candace Bushnell! She offers her choices for her faves in NYC. Like: Best place to lounge: The pool on the Soho House roof. (Of course!) The ultimate cosmo: Balthazar. (Wow! Never heard of it! I must go!) Place that makes her smile: Washington Square Park. (Ahhh!) Why? Well! Her current home, a prewar Greenwich Village apartment, is two blocks away from where she lived in the late 1970s -- though the vibe is now very different, the Post notes. (NO!) "When I first walked through Washington Square Park, there was no grass and it was filled with musicians, jugglers and punks with blue hair," Candace recalls. (Ewww! Gross!) "Now it's filled with strollers and it has the best dog run."

Finally, the pièce de résistance! We meet four 21st century Carries! Women who live the Carrie Bradshaw lifestyle no matter what!





Like Erin, a 29-year-old magazine editor who moved here last year! She is "the kind of person who will eat lentils for four weeks to get a pair of Alexander McQueen gladiator boots." Live the dream, Erin! (And you're getting plenty of fiber!)

14th Street dies a little more

The scaffolding went up April 22...and the building started to come down last week.

From an April 22 post of mine:

Meanwhile, came to the corner of 14th Street and Third Avenue. Scaffolding! And that wasn't there when I passed by Sunday. Uh-oh. This doesn't look good. Housing and a bank? [Housing? Ha! That sounds affordable. No, make this overpriced condos.]

They're back!

Last week, the ads with the bikini-clad rum saleswomen were shredded.



Replacement ads went up almost immediately! Someone is hot to sell some rum!

Dumpster of the Day

On 11th Street between First and Second Avenue.

Dancing in the Park

The Dance Parade 2008 started yesterday at 28th and Broadway and winded up at Tompkins Square Park for a DanceFest. Seemed like 500 people were taking pictures and video of these dancers.



Most everyone I know had something negative to say about this Parade and DanceFest, from traffic (and sidewalk) snarls to closed-off streets to drunken fools hours later.

Beautiful day

Even better when there's construction going on in the building next door all morning.



Speaking of which...did anyone see Noise? Curious about it.

LES home of the week

From this week's real estate section in the New York Post. One of the "dream" homes of the week (descriptions are written by Victor Wishna):

$3.475 MILLION

A century ago, you might have found two or three families squeezed into one tenement apartment along this stretch of Norfolk Street. Today, you'll find the 16-story Blue, a sparkling new condo of "pixelated" blue glass, and at its top, this roomy 2,494-square-foot penthouse duplex. It features two bedroom suites, three full bathrooms, a designer kitchen, a large private terrace and "stunning" city, river and bridge views through 40 windows. My how times (and prices) have changed.

Meanwhile, go here to feel a little more Blue.

Is this really fiction?

The Wall Street Journal yesterday ran an excerpt from the new novel by Julie Salamon titled "Hospital." This passage caught my eye:

He traveled on the overnight flight from Phoenix, landing bleary-eyed in New York on a cold morning in December Sunday. He spent the day in Manhattan, staying with a friend on the Upper West Side. She showed him Times Square, Central Park, the usual tourist stuff. On Monday morning he took the subway to Borough Park, crossing the East River, away from the Manhattan skyline toward Brooklyn, once described by another transplanted midwesterner, Ian Frazier, as having "the undefined, hard-to-remember shape of a stain"—in other words, a place you wanted to be from, not head toward. In recent years, however, the real-estate craze in Manhattan had given the borough new definition, no longer stain but hot spot for the disenfranchised young people who couldn't afford the East Village or Lower East Side and for cramped, growing families looking for bigger spaces, more sky, yards.