OMG! Isn't that Oliver Platt?!

New York magazine has a listing of some of the movies that will be filming around town this summer. In the LES, two projects are listed, including the new film by Nicole Holofcener starring Catherine Keener and Oliver Pratt (an EV Grieve favorite, by the way). Among the locations: Economy Candy. And the premise: It "concerns a family that wants to expand its two-bedroom but must wait for the cranky old lady in the apartment next door to die." Hmm, based on a true story?

Meanwhile, the listing didn't mention the new Woody Allen film with Larry David that was shooting in the neighborhood in recent weeks. (I was walking on St. Mark's when they were filming at Cafe Mogador. I sure appreciated the young twentysomething PA who yelled at me to keep walking when I was, in fact, walking.)

Anyway, just a few short months before the filming starts on Night at the Museum 2!

Breaking: Living in Manhattan can be expensive for young professionals

The Times has a piece today -- titled Starting Salaries but New York Tastes -- on how difficult it is being a young professional trying to live in Manhattan. What some people have to go through!

As the article notes:

Some tactics have long been chronicled: sharing tiny apartments with strangers. Sharing those apartments with eight strangers. Eating cheap lunches and skipping dinners — not just to save money, but so that drinks pack more of a punch and fewer need be consumed.

But there are smaller measures, no less ingenious, that round out the lifestyle. These young people sneak flasks of vodka into bars, flirt their way into clubs, sublet their walk-in closets, finagle their way into open-bar parties and put off haircuts until they visit their hometowns, even if those hometowns are thousands of miles away.

Ms. Werkheiser’s salary as a publicist, while well south of six figures, might be considered enviable elsewhere in the country, but in New York she has had to reprioritize. So the remote wardrobe was not her only money-saving tactic. She also gave up being a blonde.

Before moving from San Francisco last fall, Ms. Werkheiser realized that paying salon prices for platinum tresses in New York would require cutting back on needs like food and shelter. “So I went natural,” said Ms. Werkheiser. “I dyed it dark, a New York brunette.”

She and her friends have also located just about every B.Y.O.B. brunch spot in the city, plotting them out on Google maps. The cost-consciousness, Ms. Werkheiser says, is worth it: She adores New York and lives, with two roommates, in a $3,450-a-month three-bedroom apartment on the Lower East Side, verily the center of the universe for Manhattan’s young and hip.

A model co-op

Catching up on this week's New York Observer today. According to a real estate piece by Max Abelson, 21-year-old model Lily Donaldson bought a co-op on Avenue B along Tompkins Square Park for $2.2 million.

As the article notes:

Very blond, well-boned, expensively jeaned buyers have been pouring into East Village apartments for so long that it’s hard to find new excuses to complain about the area’s über-gentrification. But then again, it’s hard to remember when someone as upsettingly young as Lily Donaldson, the 21-year-old Vogue cover girl, spent anything like $2.2 million on a neighborhood apartment, especially one that happens to be as far east as Avenue B.

Her new two-bedroom place on Tompkins Square Park around East Eighth Street could be the most expensive co-op ever sold on the block, according to listing broker Danny Davis.

She has Brazilian cherry wood floors (“that glow with the setting sun,” according to his listing), two bathrooms with original pedestal sinks and cast iron tubs, a 40-foot-long living room with six windows facing three directions, and, of course, a dressing room off one of the two bedrooms.

On the downside, the building is massively nondescript and un-frilled, plus the apartment needs work. “I’d put money into it,” Mr. Davis said, “I’d bet she will, too.”

If you know the neighborhood, then you know the building. I won't be all creepy/stalky (creepier and stalkier?) about it and name it. Anyway. If she's paying $2.2 million for something that needs work and doesn't have a lot of amenities...uh, what will someone be paying for something new and pristine...? Plus, this just blows the co-op curve off the chart.

Back to the article:

The last sale in the building, according to city records, was a $650,000 deal just one floor down. That was in October 2004.

Meanwhile, sort of not really related:

Have you seen the window display in that newish women's boutique on 9th Street between First and Second Avenue?

10th Street between First and Second Avenue, 8:07 a.m., May 25

Revisiting: "How many rich jerks that want to be in Sex and the City can there possibly be in America?"

I originally ran this post on April 9. But it seemed like a good thing to repeat, given what's facing us next Friday...



In a Q-and-A published at Gothamist today, singer-songwriter (and Brooklyn resident) Mike Doughty was asked: If you could change one thing about New York what would it be?

His answer (bravo!):

The forward march of the gentrification cold-front. But I keep in mind that gentrification hasn't been around forever, and is a trend, not a universal unstoppable force. How many rich jerks that want to be in Sex and the City can there possibly be in America? OK, a lot, but there's not a limitless supply. If the upcoming Sex and the City movie tanks, it will be for the societal good.

Meanwhile, back to the present...

Minetta Tavern is one of Esquire magazine's "Best Bars in America"

I noticed the coverlines on the June issue of Esquire touting its next installment of the "Best bars in America" feature. Was a little curious to see if they picked any bars in the neighborhood, some place the editorial assistants told the bosses to include. (Which may explain why/how my beloved Grassroots was picked in 2006.) Anyway, I went to their Web site today to check out the list. I saw where Minetta Tavern made the list at No. 6! Deserving! But who wants to tell them that the place closed last week? (Perhaps this is last year's list...though the home page does have the June cover subject, Barack Obama, featured....)

Meanwhile, someone should also tell the good people at Citysearch the same news.

Third Avenue, 7:47 a.m., May 24

[And warning: Street festival on Third Avenue today!]

Friday night, May 23

Highs and lows this week

Such good news this week about St. Brigid's.




Meanwhile, this is what's left of the Tower of Toys as of Friday afternoon around 4.

"A handful of its buildings may seem grimly picturesque, but for the most part this is unappealing New York"

That's Simon Jenkins writing in today's Guardian UK.

It's a reaction to the National Trust for Historic Preservation naming the LES in its 2008 list of America's 11 Most Endangered Historic Places.

Here's an excerpt from his column:

A new facet of globalisation is well-meaning organisations roaming the planet listing things as threatened or on the brink of extinction. They may be a beetle, a rainforest, a Buddhist temple or, it so appears, the spirits of a city's past. Two years ago the Indiana Joneses of Unesco fought their way up the Thames to be appalled by the Tower of London. They found its setting blighted - as if overnight - by ugly office blocks, qualifying it for the "world heritage in danger" schedule. Liverpool waterfront received a similar finger-wagging.

The Tower of London is one thing, the Lower East Side another. I have been a "poverty tourist" in many awful places and felt the mix of guilt, shame and astonishment at such human resilience. But it never occurred to me to want to "save" the street camps of Calcutta, the shanties of Bogota or the inhabited concrete ruins of modern Baghdad.

The Lower East Side is not in this league, but the principle is similar. A handful of its buildings may seem grimly picturesque, but for the most part this is unappealing New York, an environment of drab tenements, public housing and vacant lots, where only the lifestyle of the fleeing minorities infuses the streets with some visual interest. The concept of "endangered" here applies to an idea, that of a cultural and social fabric, and one that is inevitably transient.

Yet the appeal of that fabric to local residents and to New Yorkers in general is undeniable. This may be a New York churning with "comers and goers", but both residents and those new to the area seem to agree on one thing: they want something of its character preserved. Conservation has matured from saving buildings to seeing them as a proxy for communities, cultures and a sense of physical identity. It is reflected in the British yearning to "save rural communities" by subsiding houses and preventing sales to newcomers, the so-called "yokel in a smock" syndrome.

Dumpster of the Day

10th Steet between Avenue A and First Avenue.

I had this dream in which I woke up and every corner in the city was now a condo, bank and Duane Reade

Then I woke up for real and.....AHHHHHHHHHH!

The Brooklyn Bridge really overdid it last night during its 125th birthday

Can't even call this a hangover. Still, what a blowout!

I'm really tired of suggestive advertising

What exactly does "come to your happy place" mean?



Now this is just too much!

Hmm, feel like seeing a movie at my neighborhood theater -- what shall I see?

"Just because a building is old does not mean that it is historically significant"

That's Mitchell L. Moss, professor of urban policy and planning at NYU's Wagner School of Public Service, in an op-ed in today's Post titled Death by 'Preservation.'

It's a reaction to the National Trust for Historic Preservation naming the LES in its 2008 list of America's 11 Most Endangered Historic Places.

An excerpt from Moss' op-ed:

New York City's Landmark Preservation Commission is focusing on the need to save important buildings in the area rather than to create a massive historic district that would limit new housing and development. Just because a building is old does not mean that it is historically significant. Landmark designation shouldn't be abused to achieve other political and social goals.

The Lower East Side is flourishing; the New Museum just opened on the Bowery and is the catalyst for the transformation of what was once the city's Skid Row. The Yiddish that once was spoken on Grand Street has been replaced by Cantonese and Mandarin.

If New York City is to accommodate the population growth projected over the next quarter century, neighborhood change is inevitable. This is not a city that stands still. It is always evolving.

We should be wary of strangers from Washington bringing their recipes for preservation; let New York be New York.

Days of Heaven? 7th Heaven? Little bit of heaven? Heaven sent?

Pennies from heaven? I think $20 million deserves better than "Pennies." Still, at least they didn't play up the "American Idol" winner any bigger on Page 1.

Here's the St. Brigid's piece from the Daily News.

And check out some of the reader comments:

Mrelvispelvis May 22, 2008 8:18:35 AM take that 20 Mil...divide it by 6K and think about how many PEOPLE you could feed for a year? far better idea than saving a building that is a sanctuary for child molesters and rapists !

sbtfaith@aol.com May 22, 2008 7:35:44 AM This is a miracle in the East Village and the school being saved is equally important. This church is stunningly beautiful and historically significant and for it to be torn down for some mirrored sky piercing condo or hotel that reflect history destroyed and a community no longer welcome. It would be terrible to have a Red Square with Lenin on top which looks like an NYU dorm with balconies replace the church or the old ps 64 building. The Red Square is co-owend by Mike Rosen and I had no idea he might have 20 mill to donate but I do believe him when he states he didn't donate it. I don't know who in the East Village has 20 million to spare. Mike Rosen lives in the Crista Dora and I am told that this building is the symbol of gentrification, the first and that it owes the community a community facility because of it's history as a building for the people. Ed Torres authentically sums up this miracle and it is a win for the East Village which looks more and more like a bad xerox

maribel May 22, 2008 7:01:43 AM church have a lot of values,but 20 million can be use for africa, haiti where the poor are dieying no food, that's what the bible said take care of the poor,children,widows

potobac May 21, 2008 10:30:27 PM How is one a scrooge when he regrets money being wasted on a building instead of being spent on people who need it? There are more than enough half-empty Catholic churches in the neighborhood where all parishioners of St. Brigid's could be comfortably taken care of without throwing away the money. A mass or whatever service would have just as much value at the other church and save the money for something useful.

"They tore it down. They tore it down. They tore it down."

Indeed. That's what a man remarked (over and over) this morning as he walked by the rubble that used to be the Tower of Toys in the community garden at 6th Street and Avenue B.

As you can see, there's not much left.





Wishful thinking.



The dumpster is full.

At least someone looks to be saving some of the toys from Eddie's creation.

Meanwhile, one-plus block to the east, as icons fall...

[Updated, 11:06 a.m.: Perhaps you'd like to go visit the Toyota Children’s Learning Garden at 603 East 11th Street, via Curbed.]

A St. Brigid's killjoy

I exchanged e-mails with a friend in the neighborhood last night about the new life for St. Brigid's. He seemed initially happy, I thought. I mentioned that the church is going to need a lot of work, hence the $10 million for the renovations. Then, in a subsequent e-mail, he harrumphed:

The construction will really fuck up the traffic and parking for several blocks. Not sure how I'll be able to find a spot.

I suggested that he sell his car.

St. Brigid's as it was...and as it will be...

I had mentioned Paul Dougherty, a longtime video maker, in a post on April 24. Given the good news about St. Brigid's, let's take a look at the church's history via Paul's work....