Lady Liberty is attracting true New York sports fans!

As Gothamist reported June 5, Major League Baseball put 42 8 1/2 feet tall Statues of Liberty around New York City in preparation for this year's All-Star Game, which will be played at Yankee Stadium on July 15. Each mini-liberty is adorned with the colors of a Major League baseball team, such as the one below for the Chicago White Sox that's on 14th Street and 4th Avenue.

It's a great way for us to show the world what great sports we are!




By the way, look at the size of Lady Liberty's feet! Wish I had put something next to the foot for scale, something like a midsized car.



[OOPS! East Village Podcasts had a good piece on the baseball statues last Thursday. Sorry fellas! And yes -- Walgreens is still selling that post-Halloween candy corn...]

Meanwhile, just stop putting baseball stuff on her. We get it.


I don't get this ad, though. The best in NY? OK, David Wright. Mets. 50 Cent. Born in Queens. OK. David Ortiz? He plays for Boston. Tell me what he has to do with New York. (Aside from being a Yankee killer through the years...)

Looking at 377 E. 10 Street -- then and now

I've been admiring the work of amg2000 on Flickr. There's a nice collection of then-and-now shots of downtown NYC...as well as 59 black-and-white photos from the 1980s.

I can't stop looking at this one, though -- 377 E. 10th St., the squat that got legal rights to the building a few years ago:


Here's what it looks like today:

[Note: I took the shot of 377 today...this one wasn't part of his then-and-now series.]

So what's all this about?

At 92 E. 7th Street, just east of First Avenue. Tearing up what used to be the garden dining space of Imagine and, before that, the Miracle Grill.

"You see, I have this little problem with my apartment..."

One of my favorites, The Apartment, was on earlier today on TCM. As you know, it's November 1959 in the film. Jack Lemmon's character, C.C. Baxter -- C. for Calvin, C. for Clifford -- lives 0n West 67th Street in a one bedroom place just a half block from Central Park. His take-home pay is $94.70 a week. As he says, "My rent is $84 a month. It used to be $80 until last July when Mrs. Lieberman, the landlady, put in a second-hand air conditioning unit."

Hmm, a quick look at just one West 67th Street price today...

Because "overrun by people who are considered to be sexually promiscuous, junkies and pushers" just didn't have the same ring to it

The Post has this report today:

Drug dens, homeless shantytowns and prostitution are rampant in New York City's parks, a Post investigation found.
Comparing the manicured lawns of Manhattan's Central Park to the barren, rat-infested eyesore of Spring Creek Park in Brooklyn, the disparity is shocking.
While the Bloomberg administration boasts that parks are in better shape than they've been in four decades, an investigation of 70 parks over the last nine months found:
* Clusters of homeless living in tents and small shantytowns in 10 parks, including Riverside Park near 148th Street in Manhattan.
* Hookers brazenly plying their 24-hour trade, including at Printers Park on Hoe Street [EV Grieve note: !] in The Bronx.
* Areas where junkies shoot up and crack dealers set up shop, including at Fort George Playground in Washington Heights.
* An illegal chop shop where stolen vehicles, including a stripped US Defense Dept. sedan, are harvested is thriving in Fresh Creek Nature Preserve in Brooklyn.
* And many barren parks covered in weeds up to 12 feet high that are used as illegal dumps for items like abandoned boats and cars, construction debris, containers of hazardous material, opened steel safes, Vegas-style slot machines - and even a discarded tombstone in Dreier-Offerman Park in Brooklyn.

Interesting, but:




Um, hos?

Flier of the day

At 9th Street and Avenue C.

To be honest, this sign makes me sad. Someone wanted to start a business and they went to the trouble of making all these fliers (there are many taped up along Avenue C). And then they went and spelled the name of the company incorrectly. Unless they do mean Cinderlla's and not Cinderella's. (And I'd argue that Cinderella's isn't the best name for a cleaning business...) But I'm probably thinking way too much about all this.

Fitness secrets of Coyote Ugly bartenders -- REVEALED

Yes, it's the Ab Lounge!


I walked by this discarded Ab Lounge on First Avenue twice this morning...and each time someone stopped and futzed with the thing for a moment, as if he might seriously bring this home. They wisely moved on. And this other guy stopped and took pictures of it...Oh, wait.

Developing story today...heartburn

Goldenfiddle noticed the important news from New York City yesterday that CNN was working on developing...

Getting to the bottom of that noise last night from somewhere over the East River

Last night, we were on a rooftop in the neighborhood enjoying a nice, quiet evening. Then, about 9:30, we heard a series of loud "bangs." My first thought was the ConEd plant on 14th Street had finally blown. But we still had power. The ruckus seemed to be coming from somewhere over the East River, I'd say in the 30s. From what I could gather, someone was setting off explosive pyrotechnic devices, which can be very dangerous. Anyway, the noise continued for nearly 30 minutes, all the while a great variety of sparkling shapes, often variously colored, could be seen through the cloudy skies. We called the police several times, but couldn't get through. Regardless, my guess is that someone was filming a big Hollywood movie. (These people have no consideration for the rest of us who have to live here.) There are many rumored sequels in the works that may be filmed here, such as Cloverfield 2: We Still Can't Afford a Tripod or I Am Legend 2: Still the Legend Despite that Hand Grenade at the End of the First One. Must have been that.

Anyway, I'll continue to investigate this. Here is 30 seconds of the action.

Tasting the difference

As I wrote one day last week, I've long been a fan of the random use of quotation marks on signs, which is why I'm a big fan of The “Blog” of “Unnecessary” Quotation Marks.) Bonus here for the quotation mark going the wrong way after difference...

A view that I used to enjoy

You know, looking north on Union Square...

The most accurate depiction of life as a runaway in New York City that I have ever seen

At least watch until the Big Dance Scene. (The 3:21 mark if you're in a hurry.) And some nice shots of 8th Avenue from the early 1980s. (And did you know that Pat Benatar was born Patricia Mae Andrzejewski in Greenpoint? Anyway, I always kind of liked her.)

Sonic Youth at Central Park, July 4, 1992

On July 4, 1992, I saw Sonic Youth at SummerStage in Central Park. Sun Ra and his Arkestra opened. I remember SY being as frenzied as I'd ever seen them as they played a Dirty-heavy set. (The record was just about to be released.) I don't remember much else, except that I loved every minute of the afternoon. (No need for all the details!)

There is a bootleg release of the show with:

Teen Age Riot
Eric's Trip
Dirty Boots
Drunken Butterfly
Theresa's Sound-world
Youth Against Facism
Swimsuit Issue
Orange Rolls, Angel's Spit
100%
Kool Thing
Sugar Kane

I couldn't find any video from this 1992 Central Park show. But I did come across Sonic Youth playing "Kool Thing" in Hultsfeld, Sweden, on June 14, 1992 (Close enough!):



By the way, as you may know, Sonic Youth plays later today with the Feelies at Battery Park.

Updated: This week's issue of Time Out New York featured the following line prominently displayed on its cover:

Yes, Sonic Youth was a free event. But you needed to get your tickets in advance. Inside the same issue, you'll see in two places that, although it was free, you weren't getting into the show. SOLD OUT.

Guess no one told this to the person writing the cover lines.

Can't stop the laughing, er, music

For the holiday weekend, let's pay homage to a most deliriously awful movie set in New York, 1980's "Can't Stop the Music." There's camp-o-rama galore with Valerie Perrine, Steve Guttenberg, Bruce Jenner and the Village People.

You've seen it, right? (It's OK if you have -- I actually own the damn thing. Think I paid $2 for it. Or so I'm claiming.)

The rather grainy-looking intro gives you all you need to know. Enjoy!

From the EV Grieve Oversight Department

Meant to post this yesterday. According to the caption: "Protesters for North Playground Renovation, Tompkins Square Park, Manhattan, July 2, 1990." I found this in the New York City Parks Photo Archive.

In case you're wondering why some SATC fans are now into Richard Hell

Many excellent posts from yesterday at Ephemeral New York. The post on Tom Verlaine at the Peppermint Lounge was of particular interest to me. As the post notes, "The Peppermint Lounge is preserved forever in all of its grunginess on DVD in a scene from the great 1982 movie Smithereens."


Wow. This film fell off my radar. I like the director, Susan Seidelman. So I took a look at the movie online. Look at the new box for the film, which stars, among others, Richard Hell. From the director of Sex and the City! She directed three episodes of the show in 1998. (There were 94 episodes in all.) A bit of a stretch for the marketing folks to try to make that connection. Still, however cheesy, the thought of some SATC fans tuning into Smithereens -- thinking the two may possibly be related -- puts a smile on my face.








Here's what KultKlassics had to say about the film.

Good news on Canal and Eldridge; remembering the Witty Brothers

Last November, Jeremiah had an item on the delightfully old-school Cup & Saucer Luncheonette on Canal and Eldridge. A rarity in these glitzy times. And still going strong! Good news, of course. Then! A friend swore to me the other day that the Cup & Saucer had been shuttered. So I headed over to the corner of Canal and Eldridge after work last night to find -- business as usual. Phew. Stupid friend.




By the way, walking north on Eldridge, I noticed this name on the building below:

I wasn't familiar with the Witty Brothers. Didn't realize the hand they played in NYC fashion history. Found this in the Times, from 2006:

Spencer B. Witty, the last of four brothers whose company, Witty Brothers, fashioned and sold elegant men's clothing through a small, prestigious chain of stores in New York, died May 29 at his home in Manhattan. He was 92.
The cause was complications of pancreatic cancer, said his grandson Eric Gould.
In 1939 Mr. Witty — along with his brothers Frederic, Ephraim and Arthur, and a cousin, Irving — took over a company founded by their grandfather David Witty in 1888. It started as one shop on Eldridge Street in Lower Manhattan. By the time it was taken over by the Eagle Clothes company in 1962, there were six stores, one in Brooklyn and five in Manhattan, including two on Fifth Avenue.
"They used luxurious fabrics, cashmere, Scottish tweeds," said Mr. Witty's daughter, Jane Gould, "and this was coming out of the Great Depression." An article in The New York Times about the "Witty boys" in 1952 said it was their insistence on retaining the high quality of their forebears that kept the company afloat through the Depression.

Writing with spray paint is much more difficult than it seems

Apparently. Along Nassau Street.

PDA of the day

Along the romantic corrider of Park Row, where buttocks cupping is in full bloom this summer among young lovers.

At the Firemen's Garden

At 364 E. 8th St., just east of Avenue C on the south side, you'll find the Firemen's Garden. Of all the gardens in the neighborhood, this one is particularly special. There's a sign on the fence that explains the garden is a tribute to all the New York City firefighters who have died in the line of duty. In particular, the sign reads, the site pays homage to the memory of Martin R. Celic, a young member of Ladder Company 18.

There's a reason I'm writing about this today. On July 2, 1977, at 3:10 p.m., a four-alarm fire broke out on the fifth floor of an abandoned six-floor tenement building that stood at 364 E. 8th St. After Celic and his fellow firefighters entered the burning building, the teenager who started the blaze reportedly went back in and set another fire, trapping the men inside.

According to news accounts at the time, Celic and seven other firefighters were injured trying to escape. A fire department cherry picker was raised to rescue the men. They needed to jump from the fire escape on the fifth floor onto the bucket. Celic fell 70 feet to the street. He was taken to Bellevue Hospital, where he died on July 10. He was 25. He was set to be married that October.

The sign on the garden talks more about Celic, and his "love of practical jokes, his joyous irreverence, and his friendliness." You can read more about how the garden came to be here.