Charles Cushman's New York City

Earlier today, Sheila at Gawker posted a Pic of the Day, which happened to be a shot of Manhattan circa 1942. The photo is from the Charles Cushman Collection at Indiana University. There are plenty more shots of Manhattan from the same era, such as the one below of the Northeast Corner of 1st Street and the Bowery taken on Oct. 4, 1942.



Or this one, taken on the same day, described only as "a block between Avenue A and Avenue B." Any guesses?

Richard Sandler's New York CIty

[Richard Sandler, 1982]

Gothamist had a great post yesterday on photographer/filmmaker Richard Sandler. He has made several documentaries, including Brave New York, which chronicles the East Village from 1988-2003. You can watch it here:



He has also made Sway, which, according to Gothamist, is 14 years of camcorder-recorded subway rides that have been edited together. Both films will be playing Aug. 22 in the community garden at Sixth Street and Avenue B. Some of his photos are in the permanent collection at the Brooklyn Museum.

Dumpster of the day

At Cooper Union.

How dopey will Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist make Manhattan look?

Several nights last December, parts of Avenue A were jammed for yet another big movie production. That movie, Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist (based on the teen novel), will be released Oct. 3. The trailer is now in theaters. (And online...)



Here's a piece on the movie, where two teens meet cute in Manhattan and end up having a wacky night with the city as their playground, from MTV.com last Dec. 14:

Film sets are places of controlled spontaneity, but even MTV News got more than we bargained for during a late-night visit to the set of "Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist," starring Kat Dennings and Michael Cera, where the wind howled, the people screamed and the actors threw everything but the kitchen sink at us — that is, when the fine citizens of the Big Apple weren't throwing it at them first.
"That's filming in New York for you!" Dennings laughed when a loud truck cut her off midsentence. "Soon some homeless guy is going to throw a banana at me. We've had homeless guys throwing avocados, tomatoes, random blunt objects. It's been amazing! I mean, you really can't fake real New York."
It would all be massively rude, if it all weren't somehow oddly appropriate, given the farcical nature of the story about two teens sharing one wild night in Manhattan, during which just about everything that can happen does.


And a video clip!

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Parallel lives on the LES

This week's New York magazine has a feature called "Parallel Lives" in which they ask two LES residents to name some of their favorite places in the neighborhood...Oh, one of the residents has lived here less than one year; the other resident has lived here 58 years. Looks like they have at least one place in common.

At the former site of the Miracle Grill garden

In a post last month, I wondered what was happening at 92 E. 7th St., in what used to be the garden dining area of the Miracle Grill.

Jeremiah has the not-so-surprising answer at Curbed, where he's a guest editor this week. (Hint: it has six stories and eight units....the new condo, not Jeremiah!)

EV Grieve is starting to take photos of sunsets and stuff

Can a record of John Tesh covers be far behind?

[Now with locations -- thanks for the prompt, Ken Mac!]

Second Avenue between St. Mark's and 7th Street looking east.

Second Avenue near 7th Street looking south.

Third Street near Avenue A looking east.

Seventh Street near Avenue B looking east.

Oops...I don't remember....I think Houston near Essex looking west.

Sixth Street near Avenue A looking west.

Avenue B near Seventh Street looking northeast.

Seventh Street and Avenue B looking east.

Houston near Essex looking west.

Known or understood by very few; mysterious; secret; obscure; esoteric

The French-Carribbean place taking over the space that belonged to Bao 111 on Avenue C now has a name...Arcane.

On 51st Street between 8th Avenue and 9th Avenue

How we began to [heart] New York

Here, a high school student looks at the origins of the "I [heart] New York campaign. I give her a B- for her project. She seemed to have problems reading the cue cards.

First sign of winter

Third Avenue between 11th Street and 12th Street. Aug. 10.

Shouldn't be long now until the Christmas decorations are up at PC Richard & Sons!

No fun? (Hardly): Iggy and the Stooges at Terminal 5

Iggy and the Stooges played last night at a sold-out Terminal 5, that place on the west side on 56th Street and, oh, Weehawken. I'm not much of a concert reviewer...so. About all I can muster at the moment is that it was a great show. And Iggy was probably having more fun than anyone else in the place. He never stood in one place more than four seconds. Per usual, he invited everyone on stage during "No Fun." Here's a snippet of the song that I filmed:



Zeronea shot this footage of "I Wanna be Your Dog," where we lose the former Christodora House resident in the crowd for a minute.



And here's a link to a Stooges clip from 1970...love the local broadcaster trying to make sense of it all...

(By the way, as you may have read, the band had their gear ripped off in Montreal on Monday. It hasn't been recovered.)

Life on Mars Monday

On 7th Street and Second Avenue. Another TV shoot to screw things up. And. Life On Mars?

I prefer this version of Life on Mars...

For Friday evening, The Big Takeover

Bad Brains. CBGB. 1982.

Paying homage to Joan Crawford on Avenue A

Another item from Eater:

The PR behind the new project in the old Julep space, writes in with an update: "This September owners Josh Boyd, Darren Rubell and Jordan Boyd (owners of Plan B and Gallery Bar) launch what they call the LEV's (Lower East Village) first piano bar and cocktail lounge....Varney designed the late Joan Crawford's homes and dedicates the space to her."

LEV?

A bartender at the Library told me a piano bar was opening in the old Julep space on Avenue A. I honestly thought she was joking, though.

Say goodbye to Marion's

Eater bring us the bad news: Bowery pioneer Marion's is closing now for good.

Read their tearful goodbye note here.

You may need some boots for this walk

As you know, there's a public hearing at 9 a.m. Wednesday in Vanderbilt Hall at NYU's School of Law to discuss the 141-block rezoning of the East Village and Lower East Side.

Ramping up to that, the Daily News went on a walking tour of the neighborhood with Amanda Burden, who chairs the city planning commission and will lead Wednesday's meeting.

Here are a few excerpts from the article:

She looks at each neighborhood block by block, lot by lot. To her, the city is a jewel that needs constant care and safekeeping.

"Each neighborhood has its own personal DNA," says Burden, who had an immediate impact on the city when she took her position in 2002 by allowing restaurants, bars and cafes additional sidewalk space for outdoor dining. "It's my job to find it and save it."

To understand communities, Burden walks miles of city streets. Armed with a tape measure, sunglasses and comfortable yet stylish shoes (she is, after all, a former socialite), the planning commissioner eyes building heights, studies the flow of people and contemplates how an area's past relates to its present and future.

"It's my job to affect the process for the betterment of the people who live here, shop here and own businesses here," says Burden, pointing to the row of iron fire escapes that give a sculptural frame to the brown brick tenement buildings of the lower East Side.

"I picture myself part of the community. Here, there is a vibrant commercial and residential history. We want to keep ground-floor retail and ensure nothing can be built that will take away from the symmetry of these historic buildings. The magic here is in the density of people using these streets and living together."

"This wasn't here two weeks ago," Burden says, sneering at a vacant lot. "There was a building. Once you lose a building, you lose character and history. The Bloomberg administration is about growth and preservation. This is why we have to act fast to change the zoning, so developers aren't allowed to come in here and build whatever they chose. I don't mind a building that is in context with the others, meaning the same height with architectural guidelines, but small streets shouldn't have large development."

Orchard St. bustles on a Sunday afternoon. People shop, eat outside and ride bikes on narrow streets. Some construction sites show tall buildings made of concrete with no ground-floor retail.

"I'm biased toward skyscrapers," says Henry Brown, a physics student at City College who moved to the neighborhood from St. Louis. "I like them. I don't like ugly buildings. But even if they rezone, won't all these modern stores still look different than the old ones?"

"The essence of the East Village is tree-lined cool streets, small boutiques and community gardens," Burden says, walking along Avenue B toward Tompkins Square Park. "That's its DNA. Once you break it down to that fabric, you can act. Here, we want five- to seven-story buildings and small retail on the first and second floors. And we have to ensure these gardens stay put. No other community has this asset."

EV Grieve FYI: Martin Scorsese edition

Oscar winner Martin Scorsese is in negotiations to direct HBO's drama pilot "Boardwalk Empire." Scorsese already is exec producer on the project, based on Nelson Johnson's book, which chronicles the 1920s origins of gambling mecca Atlantic City. [Hollywood Reporter, via MediaBistro]

After four days of notes from EV Grieve, might as well do one more

I'll be at Curbed for one more day...

"New York is now a museum, a relic"

"Now we end up with this nice, beautiful city, but like Rome or Athens, they were never a leading cultural center again. New York now is a museum, a relic. It's over. I'm not saying you can't be corporate, be picked up here like Britney Spears, but the whole avant-garde, Allen Ginsberg-world can't ever exist here again." -- Clayton Patterson talking to the Observer

Previous Clayton Patterson coverage on EV Grieve is here.