Dumpster of the day

On 10th Street and Second Avenue, near the soon-to-be-departed Mill Quality Cleaners.

Random piece of movie dialogue about New York City of the day

"I'm tellin' ya, the crime rate in New York will kill ya. There's so many problems, you never feel like you're accomplishing anything. Violence, rip-offs, muggings. The kids can't leave the house. You gotta walk 'em to school. But in Amity, one man can make a difference. In 25 years, there's never been a shooting or a murder in this town." -- Amity Police Chief Martin Brody, Jaws (1975)

Another day, another direction

Is it me, or is that crane hovering over Cooper Union move around by the minute? Particularly on weekends, when no one is working...



See some of my previous photos of the crane here.

New York TV party today

Inspired by a post by Rolando at Urbanite, I started revisiting some TV shows of yesteryear that were set in New York. Posted a few yesterday. EV Grieve commenter Eric suggested Bosom Buddies. As he wrote, "Pretending to be a woman to have an apt. in NYC, now that's gritty." Indeed! (Sidenote: It's too bad that both leads from Bosom Buddies faded into obscurity!)

Anyway, here are the intros to a handful of TV shows from the 1970s and 1980s that show some NYC scenery. I missed a lot. Feel free to offer any suggestions. (Oh, and I couldn't find McCLoud...)









Sorry, commercial break.






This includes the opening scene of Bridget Loves Bernie, one of my favorites -- a wealthy Catholic woman marries a Jewish cab driver. Ran for one year, 1973-74. Lead actor David Birney went on the play the lead in the understandably short-lived Serpico TV series.









Time for more commercials




Our sponsors insist we close with more commercials. Sorry.

Distrubing trend of the day: Golf clubs on the bus

My bus passes through the heart of the newish condo country on the LES. And, with greater frequency this summer, I see more young sporty sports getting on the bus Friday mornings toting golf clubs. Didn't see this many even, say, two years ago. Either these fellows are a year or two away from car-service privileges at the firm or gratuitous use of such car services have been chopped from the company budget. Whatever. Just don't take up three seats guys, OK?

"First of all, their hair rules"

That's the MC introducing Nirvana at the Pyramid Club on July 18, 1989. Nirvana made their New York City debut that night as part of the New Music Senimar. They played a 14-song set. Other bands on the bill that night were Cows, God Bullies, Lonely Moans and Surgery. (This information came from the Nirvana Live Guide.)

Here's some grainy footage of their NYC debut:



During "Floyd the Barber," a drunk gets on stage. He's eventually shoved off by Kurt Cobain and second guitarist Jason Everman, who was later kicked out of the band. (This was his last show with Nirvava, who were so disappointed in how they played, they cancelled their remaining four gigs on this East Coast tour. )



Meanwhile, here's a video for "In Bloom," some of which was shot in and around East River Park, the Financial District and the South Street Seaport the day before their Pyramid Club gig. The peformance footage for the video was shot in April 1990.



This article by Joe D'Angelo and Jem Aswad published on MTV.com provides more background about the performance at the Pyramid Club and the "In Bloom" video:

According to Michael Azerrad's "Come As You Are," the definitive Nirvana tome, the show was far from the band's best: One of the few who refrained from heckling was Iggy Pop, who cheered encouragingly. After the show, bassist Krist Novoselic was so disappointed with the performance that he shaved his head bald in the Jersey City, New Jersey, motel where the band was staying. This explains why, in the video, he's seen with hair in some scenes and resembles Kojak in others.

Sonic Youth's Thurston Moore and Kim Gordon stitched in the story's silver lining by bringing A&R man Gary Gersh to the show. Not long after, Gersh signed the band to Geffen Records, the company that released Nirvana's breakthrough, Nevermind, in 1991, after Moore convinced Kurt Cobain that signing to a major label wasn't selling out. The video, however, offers no indication that the band was on the verge of a bad night.

EV Grieve Etc. -- Time Out New York edition

New York City native David "deadpan" Duchovny is out pushing the new X-Files movie and is the subject of the Time Out New York Hot Seat this week:

Time Out New York: I hear you’re moving back to New York with your family this fall. How long has it been since you last lived here?
David Duchovny: Over 20 years. Has it changed?

TONY: Not at all. Especially not the East Village, where you grew up.
David Duchovny: [Laughs] Yeah, it’s very different. But the East Village was always struggling to have an identity. I think it always will.

Well, this short-n-snappy Q-and-A format doesn't lend itself to any thought-provoking, in-depth answers... he's a bright guy, and I'd like to hear more on why he thinks the East Village has always struggled to have an identity. (And I wonder if House of D questions were off limits?)

Meanwhile, this issue of Time Out features an "Activism for every attention span" cover package. "Inspired by a readers' poll of top concerns, we show you how to improve our city, no matter how much — or how little — time you're willing to give." Among the concerns tackled:

• Overdevelopment is killing your neighborhood
• Affordable housing doesn’t exist

Celebrating James Cagney

EV Grieve favorite James Cagney was born on this date in 1899. According to Wikipedia (oh, c'mon): Cagney was born on the Lower East Side . . . above his father's saloon on the corner of Avenue D and 8th Street to James Cagney Sr., an Irish American bartender and amateur boxer, and Carolyn Nelson; his maternal grandfather was a Norwegian ship captain while his maternal grandmother was an Irish American. The family moved twice when Cagney was still young, first to East 79th Street, and then to East 96 Street.

Cagney and Jean Harlow in The Public Enemy (1931)

Almost as effective as any developer or greedy politico

From Gawker: "Here are clips of the 15 best films featuring New York getting annihilated, curated by Nick McGlynn."

Oh, wait -- this wasn't one of the 15?

Looking at 1980s New York via network television

Rolando at Urbanite brought back a memory for me with a post on The Equalizer from 1985. As he notes, The Equalizer shows Times Square in all its pre-Giuliani glory. (Via Jeremiah)

Here's a clip I found from the show's opening (New York looks so SCARY!):



And where was the Olde Garden, which you see at the 21-second spot?

Oh, and all this makes me think of Cagney & Lacey from 1982 (and what happened to Meg Foster?):


Still, I prefer the gritty realism of other shows. (ACID RAIN in MANHATTAN! @ the 2:26 spot)

Fun figures of the day!

From the Times today:

After more than two decades, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg and one of his earliest business partners, Merrill Lynch, are parting company in a deal that places a public value on the mayor’s private company, Bloomberg L.P.

That figure: At least $22.5 billion.

Gothamist reported yesterday that Mayor Bloomberg had an approval rating of 71 percent. To which Gothamist commenter Bingosbackup responded, "I think that's supposed to be 7.1 %."

The new world order, at least on the LES

Do you remember the Iglesia Pentecostal Arca De Salvacion (above) at the corner of Houston and Suffolk? Well, here's all that's left of it.




Wow, that seemed quick. (I'm told the church moved to a new location.) I haven't heard yet what's going in here. I'm sure something useful and new and different. As I mentioned Sunday, Vasmay Lounge has moved from the other side of Houston and Suffolk to Essex Street. More change is expected on the relatively quiet Suffolk Street. One resident told me they are waiting to be bought out by their landlord, who plans on selling the old tenement building. And what became of those Starbucks-to-Suffolk-and-Stanton rumors? (Based on what I read and what people told me, Starbucks was opening on every street corner in the LES. And is Starbucks even expanding these days?)

I thought about this as I crossed Houston onto Avenue B, where the name of this newish store on Avenue B between Houston and 2nd Street really hit me.

Remembering the Revolutionary

Streets around Tompkins Square Park were blocked off yesterday for the crew to shoot something for that ABC series Cupid. I tried not to pay attention. I usually don't. However, last summer, before I was doing this site, I shot some photos of what promised to be an enormous project in the neighborhood.


The ominous-looking fliers went up several days before the blessed event was taking place on June 8. As the flier showed, the movie would feature Kate Winslet (ohh!) and directed by her husband Sam Mendes. The movie is based on the 1961 novel of the same name by Richard Yates. The flier failed to mention other co-stars, such as the leading man. You may have heard of him, an up-and-comer who I think has real potential -- Leonardo DiCaprio, who would be making a triumphant return to the East Village, where he shot parts of The Basketball Diaries in late 1993 and early 1994.

Anyway, as the week went on, more and more equipment was assembled around Tompkins Square Park. This thing promised to hog up most of Avenue B between 6th Street and 10th Street. Plus the north side of 7th Street between Avenue A and C. (Good lord, where would people heading to Le Souk this Friday night park!)

I chatted up some poor bastard who had to sit there in a folding chair and guard a truck. Turned out they were only filming interior shots at 295 E. 8th St. at Avenue B. That regal-looking building on the other side of the street from St. Brigid's was erected in 1887. It was known as Newsboys' and Bootblacks' Lodging House as well as Tompkins Square Lodging House for Boys and Industrial School, Children's Aid Society. Parts of Jim Sheridan's movie In America were filmed there a few years back too.

Anyway, after all that, the filming wasn't as disruptive as I thought. (I'm open to horror stories, please.) In fact, it was pretty mellow, as least what I saw of it. No obnoxious PAs barring residents from their homes or sidewalks, etc. No screaming fans looking to mob Leo (guess that's why his name wasn't on the flier). It was a pleasant change of pace from some of the other obnoxious shoots around the Park. The movie comes out here on Dec. 26. 

Earlier on EV Grieve:

Why the East Village will be a mess tonight and tomorrow

UPDATED:
Bob Arihood shows how Cupid disrupted the neighborhood, particularly the business at Ray's. (Neither More Nor Less)

At the construction site for the Wyndham Garden Hotel

The L-shaped hotel will wrap around three low-rise buildings that sit on the corner of Maiden Lane and Nassau Street. When I took this photo, two meatheads in suits standing nearby smoking said to me, "Hey, welcome to New York City." Then he turned to his friend and muttered, "Fuckin' tourists."

Previously on EV Grieve:
A Win Won situation

Window shopping on 10th Avenue (for some reason)

Somehow, these all seem related.

"Sitting through 'Rent' is more painful than a scrotal nick"

Jeffrey Goldberg at The Atlantic had a short post on Campbell Robertson's "Rent" essay from the Sunday Times that we had discussed. That piece began:

I WAS late to "Rent." Late to the show, and late to the city it portrays. When I arrived in New York, in the fall of 1998, bistros and boutiques had already infiltrated the East Village, gentrification was spreading into the Lower East Side, and northwest Brooklyn had largely fallen to the forces of the bourgeoisie.

According to Goldberg, Robertson broke an age-old journalism tenet. I learned a long time ago Peter Kann's rule concerning the first-person pronoun: "No reporter may start a story with the word 'I' unless he's been shot in the groin.

He continued:

On the other hand, sitting through "Rent" is more painful than a scrotal nick. Robertson is newly assigned to the Baghdad bureau of the Times, which has its hardships, but I'd take Baghdad over "Rent" most days of the week.

[Via Romenesko]

Previously on EV Grieve:

The East Village: "Where you can come live on dreams and tofu"

Elk in the City

OK, I have to admit I had no idea that there was an Elk Street in Manhattan. Stumbled upon it yesterday. Not much of a street. It starts at Chambers and quickly ends here:


But there's interesting history to it. According to Archaeology magazine, Elk Street's history goes back to 1867, when "a group of New York actors formed a drinking club called the Jolly Corks and held their first meeting at a boarding house on this street, which was then known as Elm Street. By the early twentieth century, the club evolved into a fraternal and philanthropic society, renamed the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks, now with hundreds of chapters across the United States. The street's name was changed to honor the first Elk lodge in 1939."

[Image via Time Out New York]

Seeing this street name reminded me of a nearly extinct part of the city -- the Elk Hotel, which is, well. Here's how Steven Kurutz described it in a June 13, 2004, article in the Times:

A shabby little building at Ninth Avenue and 42nd Street, just down from the Port Authority Bus Terminal, the Elk is the kind of hotel whose reputation precedes it. It offers rooms by the hour to couples who aren't very well acquainted, and doesn't change the sheets a whole lot. Put simply, the Elk is a flophouse.

There's more, and it's a thing of beauty:

There are 50 guestrooms at the Elk, and they are remarkable less for what they contain than for what they do not. There's usually no TV, no phone and, beyond a nightstand and a bed, no furniture. There's also no air-conditioning, making the summers brutal. The bathrooms, two per floor, are communal, which tends to scare off most American tourists.
Once, Times Square boasted a dozen hotels like the Elk. There was the Evans on West 38th Street and the Woodstock on 43rd, once a favorite of winos and methadone addicts. But in the neighborhood's revitalization, the flophouses were mostly remodeled or demolished.
The Elk's miraculous -- some would say unfortunate -- survival stems from a real estate fluke (the building's owner doesn't want to sell) and from the tenacity of its proprietor, who would identify himself only as Dinesh. Sitting on a stool in the hotel's small glassed-in office, he emitted the weary impatience of a man who for the past 17 years has daily beaten back the devil from his door. It took great effort, he said, to rid the hotel of its drug dealer residents, and he continually defends the place against their return, denying a room to anybody he finds suspect.


[Photo via Lost City]

I haven't been in that neighborhood for a few months. So I thought I'd give the hotel a call. Just to make sure they were still open. I never thought about what I was going to say when/if someone answered the phone. Anyway, this is exactly how the conversation went:

Elk: Hello?

Me: Uh, is this the Elk?

Elk: Yes.

Me: Are you open?

Elk: Yes.

Me: Do you rent rooms by the month?

Elk: No. Only by the day.

Me: So I 'd have to pay you each day for a month?

Elk: No. You can only stay here for three or four days at a time, then we'll ask you to check out.

Me: I see. Thank you.

Meanwhile, not everyone shares my enthusiasm for the Elk.



These reviews were gleaned from Yahoo! Travel. (Still, four of the eight reviews were positive.)

For further reading:
Old 42nd Street Ain't Gone Yet (Lost City)

Batman Begins tonight in Tompkins Square Park

An obvious choice given that The Dark Knight opens Friday. This film series is all well and good. I'm all for free things that can bring the community together. Not to mention I enjoy cheesy Hollywood movies. (Not that the films in this series are cheesy.) Still, I'd appreciate an outdoor movie series showing more obscure mainstream and independent films and/or a showcase for local filmmakers. How about something on the history of the neighborhood, such as Clayton Patterson's Captured?

Anyway, back to Batman Begins...and one more wish: Wouldn't mind seeing another Christian Bale movie instead...

Gone but not forgotten

On 10th Avenue at 25th Street.

"Small businesses and low-income New Yorkers keep getting pushed out"

Juan Gonzalez checks in on the LES rezoning plan in the Daily News today in a piece titled Lower East Side rezone plan another Mike Bloomberg boondoggle:

Wah Lee, a slight, middle-aged factory worker, stood in front of the Municipal Building Tuesday vowing a long fight to save her Chinatown neighborhood.
All around her were dozens of Chinese and Hispanic residents of the lower East Side. They held up placards with words like: "Stop Racist Rezoning" and "Chinatown/Lower East Side Are Not For Sale."
They brought a box of petitions with the signatures of some 10,000 of their neighbors - all opposed to the City Planning Commission's new rezoning proposal.
Theirs is a story that has become all-too familiar during the Bloomberg era: another stable neighborhood turned upside down by a massive rezoning.
The sheer number of these rezonings - from Columbia University to Hudson Yards to Greenpoint-Williamsburg to Willets Point, boggles the mind.
City officials routinely claim it's for the good of the neighborhoods, but in the end a handful of well-connected developers and Big Box stores end up the big winners.
Small businesses and low-income New Yorkers keep getting pushed out.

[Downtown Express photo by Shoshanna Bettencourt]