Hot in the city (1910-1915 style)

The Library of Congress has a photostream at Flickr that includes archival photos of Manhattan. Given the diabolical heat of late, these seemed approriate to post; to see how those before us coped with the heat.

Caption reads, "Fountain, Madison Square Park on a hot day." (Where's Shake Shack?)

No mention where this was taken. Just a note about a man cooling his head on a hot day.

Caption reads, "Asleep in Battery Park on hot day." (Maybe they're just waiting for the new Apple iPhonograph to be unveiled.)

Caption reads: "Milk House, Tompkins Sq.; hot day."

Meanwhile, I wouldn't mind this scene in Union Square for a few minutes right about now...

Speaking of hot . . . checking in at the FunHouse Disco

So what is this? According to the YouTube description: "New York Hot Tracks visits the popular FunHouse Disco on 26th St. in Manhattan NYC 1984. Carlos DeJesus introduces Adam from Canarsie. Adam does some Buggin also known as kick dancing. This style of dance was unique to the club in the early 1980's."

Two for Tuesday -- Suicide

(For no reason. Just an appreciation.)

"Hanging out on the Lower Worst Side"

During my walk around the neighborhood Saturday, I came across a rummage sale in one of the community gardens on East 8th Street. (They seem to hold sales fairly often on weekends in the summer.) The garden is sandwiched between two buildings...million-dollar condos on the left, and a multimillion-dollar residence with a ground-floor apartment to help off-set the monthly bills.

By the way, 337 E. 8th Street, the address of the schmancy house, was the address of 8bc, the performance space/club/gallery that saw the likes of They Might Be Giants, Karen Finley and Steve Buscemi take the stage during its run from 1983-85. This was before my time here. So I always appreciate hearing stories about the place.

Meanwhile, here's a passage on 8bc by Cynthia Carr from the Times in 2006. The piece is titled Hanging out on the Lower Worst Side:

I remember walking down Avenue B with friends one night around 1983 when we ran into the two artists who had just opened 8BC, soon to become the East Village’s hottest club. They told us that if we wanted to perform (though none of us were performers), we were welcome. By then, I had also been invited to join a band, and I can’t sing or play.
The art world had cracked open, shaken by punk, which embraced ugliness and urban decay while putting a lot of old categories in question. What was music anymore when some of those No Wave records could clear a room? This was the era when everything could be tried, and there was space for the tryout.
This was the neighborhood I used to call the Lower Worst Side. 8BC occupied the basement of an old farmhouse. At least, that’s how people always described that building.

Meanwhile, in another piece from the Times on the Lower East Side music scene from 1988:

THE Lower East Side has often been treated as a neighborhood producing one sort of music, neatly categorizable and easily stuffed away with the dirty laundry. But when historians of the Lower East Side reconsider the facts, the 1980's will be thought of as an immensely diverse, fecund era for music. The composers and improvisers John Zorn, Elliott Sharp and Wayne Horvitz have broken out of their turf, gaining a larger audience as they reached artistic maturation. The intense and radical social criticism of rock groups like the Swans and Sonic Youth, and the once endless stream of legendary clubs (now curtailed by real-estate prices), from 57 Club and 8BC to the still-vital CBGB and the new Knitting Factory, will make the 80's sound like Eden.

Dumpster of the Day

On 14th Street just east of First Avenue.

Getting a Handle on the new yogurt place

I walked by the soon-to-open shop at 153 Second Ave., situated between Ryan's and the Thirsty Scholar, that will sell self-service frozen yogurt.

After I snapped this photo, a man walked out of the shop. I asked him when they would be opening for business. He paused for so long, I got the idea that he had nothing to do with the place and maybe just happened by to steal tools or something. He finally said "maybe in a couple of months." Dunno how reliable that is. You'd think they'd want to be open for the summer...

I've lost track at all the dessert joints along here for tourists and NYU kids. There's the Tasti-D-Lite across the street. And the fat, bald guy's chocolate place. And the 8-9 or so Berry places on St. Mark's...And how many things have given this spot a go in recents years? La Ame Russe? Barracuda Bistro?Bandito?

Because ugly dishwashers aren't welcome?

I have no idea when Link Restaurant and the adjacent cafe space closed on 15th Street and Irving Place. I went to Link once for a beer before a show at the Irving Plaza. I think my beer cost me more than my ticket to the show.

Anyway! The new place going in that spot is now hiring. And you have the option of sending them a photo with your résumé.

The Tower of Toys stood here

"It was a douchefest much like last year's"

Every year I'm offered to tickets to go to the Belmont Stakes, every year I politely decline. And every year I'm so happy that I declined.

And yesterday? Gawker's Richard Blakely had this report last night:

"I had the great misfortune of going to The Belmont Stakes today. It was a douchefest much like last year's. I waited in a long line to use the restroom for about 30 or so minutes and when I finally got to the front I overheard someone say, 'Hey look at that guy, he can't wait and he's just pissing in the trash bin." Just then someone else corrected him and said, 'Oh no, the bathrooms in the entire complex are out, this is the line to piss in the trash can.' It was at that point that the place started to look more like the convention center after Katrina.

Ugh. The Times had this to report:

The scorching heat at Belmont Park on Saturday took its toll on everyone — the jockeys, the horses, the fans, and perhaps more than anyone else, the people waiting in line for the restrooms.
The temperature was 96 degrees at its peak and Belmont seemed to be unprepared for the demand for water. John Lee, the director of communications for New York Racing Association, said that the water had to be shut off in places and the pressure was lowered everywhere else to help conserve it.
“The problem didn’t come to light until there was extremely high usage,” he said.
Women began using men’s restrooms and lines went more than 50 sweating, complaining people deep.

Gawker commenter MrInBetween had this to say:

I pissed in a barrel after a 20 minute wait ... On the way out of that shit-box, a drunken frat boy . . . stepped on my foot, then told me to "fuck off." I had to be restrained from ripping his head off. I wish I had; it would have redeemed the day.

Blakely also posted this comment:

And this photo pretty much summed up the entire day...

Plus, of course, Big Brown lost.

And we still may be losing the OTBs.

"Every year since I've arrived there have been people crying that it was not like it was before"

That's Florent Morellet, owner of the soon-to-close Florent, in a Q-and-A in today's Post.

An excerpt:

Some people blame "Sex and the City" for the gentrification of the area.

I totally disagree. These are societal changes. We love to simplify things as humans and put labels on things. So the 18th century in France was Marie Antoinette and Louis XVI and a couple of writers. You put some people in charge of some periods. They say I made the meat market. I could have died from the whooping cough at age 5 - which I almost did - and I don't think it would have made a difference in the [area]. Some people put [the gentrification] on Pastis, some people put it on Jeffrey opening, other people put it on the Gansevoort Hotel. It's all of us. Every year since I've arrived there have been people crying that it was not like it was before.

But has it changed for the better?

Let me tell you, in the early '90s, the neighborhood really was so scary with the crack epidemic. The people who feel nostalgic were not coming then. That was the year we actually lost money. I think people don't remember. We had to leave the restaurant in groups of three because almost all of us got mugged. Memory is a beautiful thing and it's totally influenced by emotions - mine as much as anyone's.

Breaking, exclusive: It's hot out

Today's high: 94

Meanwhile, just 12 days until summer! Let's celebrate.

"I remember seeing Dylan in the Village..."

I kind of dread the day I hear that and the (presumably young and dumb) person isn't referring to Bob.

“When I go out my door now, I don’t see anyone I know. I see the loss of a community.”

[Image by Clayton Patterson]

The new issue of The Brooklyn Rail has a great feature on Clayton Patterson, the artist and documentarian who has been chronicling the changes in the Lower East Side since he first set up shop here in the early 1980s. Some of his 100,000 photos and 10,000 hours worth of footage went into Captured, which debuts Friday at The Rooftop Film Festival. "The film is as much a biopic of the neighborhood as it is a portrait of Patterson himself," according to the article by Jericho Parms

Here's an excerpt from the article:

When the Lower East Side took hold of Clayton Patterson, it never let go. He speaks of it as “a magic crucible that everything else would come out of.” In the last decade, he believes, he’s seen the end of that era as soaring real estate prices have begun to empty the village of its artists, bohemians, radicals and immigrants.
“When I go out my door now, I don’t see anyone I know. I see the loss of a community.” Patterson notes the changes—the cranky old tailor is gone, a trendy café bar bought out the Latino grocery on the corner. Still, there is a good chance that any person that walked the streets or attended an event in “the deep pool that is the Lower East Side” in the past two decades can be found somewhere in the Clayton Patterson archives. And, in that sense, they will live on forever.

Here's a trailer for the film:



Here's an article on Patterson from the Times.

Angie's got a three-floor gun

Happy Belmont Stakes Day (and so long OTB?)

Affirmed vs. Alydar -- best rivalry in sports history? And how about that 1978 Belmont Stakes race in the video above? Best ever?

Meanwhile, head to your local OTB parlor today to make your bet(s). The parlors are expected to close June 15. In fact, more than 1,000 OTB workers were just sent their pink slips. As the Times put it in a Feb. 22 feature: If OTB Goes, So Would a Relic of a Grittier City

Previously on EV Grieve:
So long, OTB (and happy Derby day)

Bonus:
A photo taken outside the OTB in Chinatown by Alison Grippo (via Flickr)

Weekend getaway

Let's take a trip back to Coney Island in the 1940s...

Bring it on (aka GOP Hard)

The Battle of the Bowery continues...On Page Six. Yesterday, we learned the New York Young Republican Club held a monthly social event at the Bowery Wine Company, which Bruce Willis has something to do with. In response to comments made by John Penley in April, one young GOPper told Page Six, "Needless to say, we're going to fill his neighborhood whether he likes it or not. We're coming with briefcases and BlackBerrys in hand to stake our claim."

And today?

The Bowery turf war between yuppie Republicans and local lefties will resume next Friday, when East Village gadfly John Penley will lead a demonstration in front of the Bowery Wine Co. with the Rev. Frank Morales of St. Mark's Church. Besides protesting "right-wing Republicans [a reference to Bruce Willis] opening yuppie wine bars in our neighborhood," as Penley put it, the rabble-rousers will blast the court decision allowing the owner of the tenement at 47 E. Third St. to evict his tenants so he can use the building as a one-family mansion. The New York Young Republican Club, which just held its monthly social at the Bowery Wine Co., is invited to counter-demonstrate - but, Penley told Page Six, "they have to show up in suits carrying briefcases so we can tell them apart."

Anyone know what time the demonstration will take place next Friday...?

Earlier on EV Grieve:

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

The Lower East Side: There goes the neighborhood

That's the headline for the May 28, 1984, New York magazine cover story that I recently came across. The piece begins in the early 1980s with the rotting hulk of the Christodora and the young man eager to own it, Harry Skydell.

Skydell's enthusiasm was indeed mysterious. The sixteen-story building he wanted to buy, on Avenue B facing Tompkins Square Park, was surrounded by burned-out buildings that crawled with pushers and junkies. It was boarded up, ripped out, and flooded...Early in the seventies, the city had put up the Christodora up for auction and nobody bid.

The building was eventually sold in 1975 for $62,500. (Last I saw, two-bedroom units there -- roughly 1,100 square feet -- average $1.6 million or so. Of course, they're rarely available.)

The article talks about the influx of chain stores, art galleries and chic cafes. "And real-estate values are exploding" as a result. Said one longtime resident on the changes: "I've lived in my rent-controlled apartment for years and pay $115 a month. I live on the Lower East Side. The young kids who just moved in upstairs and pay $700 a month for the same space -- they live in the East Village."

There are so many interesting passages in the article by Craig Unger that I'd end up excerpting the whole thing. So it's below. You can click on each image to read it. Meanwhile, what do you think would be the headline for this story today?

I SO hope my new fake ID works this weekend!

Random gripe of the day

The music played at the new bar comes from the iPod owned by the 23-year-old bartender (UES resident?), which makes you long for the quality of, say, Z-100.

[Warning: More gripes TK.]