Taking a picture of a staircase on the Bowery

The appreciation of the Bowery continues. The door to the stairs of these apartments/lofts/whatever was ajar the other evening. On the west side of the Bowery, close to Houston.

Saving Coney Island (on film)

Kinetic Carnival brings us the news that there's a new Coney Island documentary on the way. Here's the trailer for Save Coney Island: the Movie:

NY baseball fans: "Some of them are also facing startling increases in ticket costs during a serious economic downturn"

The Times hits on one of EV Grieve's favorite topics today: New Stadiums: Prices, and Outrage, Escalate.

No American market has witnessed anything like it: two baseball teams and two football teams will open three new stadiums within 17 months and 20 miles of one another, with everything set to be in place by the fall of 2010.
But even as fans of the Mets, the Yankees, the Giants and the Jets look forward to state-of-the-art stadium architecture, better sightlines, wider concourses and more bathrooms, some of them are also facing startling increases in ticket costs during a serious economic downturn.

Previously on EV Grieve:
Even rich people can't afford to see the Mets or Yankees next season

Any bets that S.I. Yankees and Brooklyn Cyclones ticket prices go up as well?

More change coming to Avenue C: "The possibilities are endless!"

Yeah, it's no secret that this building on Avenue C between 6th Street and 7th Street is for sale. It's just when you see the ad for the property in the Elliman window that...that, well, just read the description of this "rare opportunity" for yourself. Then you can throw up on your own shoes.



The building is delivered "vacant and renovated." Like to know what happened to the former tenants...

On Staple Street

In Tribeca. Two short, heavenly blocks -- west of Hudson Street, from Duane to Jay to Harrison Streets.





According to a February 2001 article in the Times:

In 1894, New York Hospital built the House of Relief, a downtown clinic, on Jay from Hudson to Staple, with an ambulance entrance facing Staple. In that year The New York Herald noted that the hospital was sending its ambulance out as often as seven times a day, sometimes on emergencies involving sunstroke, "which so often occurs in the lower part of the city," perhaps because of the large number of men working outdoors on the docks.

In 1907 the hospital built an annex across Staple Street (replacing the saloon/row house at Jay and Staple) as a stable and laundry, connecting it at the third-floor level using a pedestrian bridge.

I didn't do any research to see if this block is earmarked for a condo or something. I just want to enjoy it.

One man's dream: Colorful trash bags in the city

From today's Metro New York:

Adrian Kondratowicz is tired of the “bland and mundane” black trash bags tossed onto city sidewalks. His dream is to see an entire swath of Manhattan south of 14th Street lined with cheerily colorful polka dotted bags for at least one week.

That’s still the goal of his project, TRASH:anycoloryoulike, but for now, the Helmut Lang model-turned-artist has scaled down his vision to a handful of installations using bright pink biodegradeable bags.

“It was difficult to get sponsorship,” Kondratowicz said. “Everyone liked the idea, but no one wanted to write me a check. So I wrote myself one.”

He coughed up $8,000 to make eco-friendly bags because he “didn’t want to create more waste.” They decompose in one to seven years.

And thank you for answering my question. Cost.

The bags are costly to make and are not yet a “mass product,” Kondratowicz noted. He sells signed bags as collectors items — or for trash, if a buyer chooses. The bags range from $10 for the pink with white polka dots to $25 for gold dots.

Meanwhile, don't mind me. I need to do this.

Ad of the day

On West Broadway. Just one of the four icons that Vans has chosen for this new campaign. Oh, and Motörhead's new album is out today.

At the bar with the young fellows who want bacon in their drink

A recent post from The Barmaid Blog:

"Hey, honey, can you guys make a Benton's Old Fashioned?" asks the bedheaded hipster who looks too skinny to support life.

It's a relatively slow moment for a Friday night, so I take a second to appraise him and his friend. Of the nine thoughts that cross my mind in that moment, including the obnoxious juxtaposition of "honey" with "guys," I settle on replying, "I make a great Old Fashioned, but I have to admit I don't know what a Benton's is, and I don't get stumped very often."

"So you're in need of a good stumping?" That's from Bedhead's buddy, a bespectacled dude with a big shrub of curly hair like he's auditioning for the lead in "Knocked Up 2: Electric Boogalo."

I raise my eyebrows. "And you're just the guys to give it to me?"

Bedhead says, "We had it on the Lower East Side a few weeks ago at this place called PDT, but we couldn't get in tonight."

"Dude, PDT's in the East Village," says Jewfro.

"I thought it was Alphabet City?"

"Yeah, Alphabet City is part of the East Village. The Lower East Side is below Houston."

"I thought that was NoLiTa and SoHo."

I smack my hand on the bar a few times.

By the way, a Benton's Old Fashioned is made with bacon.

Looking at New York, I Love You

Moe at Gawker has a post this afternoon on New York, I Love You, which IMDB describes as "an anthology film joining several love stories set in one of the most loved cities of the world, New York." The movie stars everyone: Ethan Hawke, John Hurt, Rachel Bilson, Natalie Portman, Chris Cooper, Orlando Bloom, Shia LaBeouf, Blake Lively, Kevin Bacon, James Caan, Julie Christie, Christina Ricci, etc., etc. (And a dozen or so people are directing the vignettes...including Scarlett Johansson.)

The trailer was released the other day too.

Anyway, here's Moe's take:

Here is the movie's most profound thought thus far leaked:

"This is what I've always loved about New York. Those little moments on the sidewalks, you can watch the buildings and feel the air and look at the people, and sometimes meet somebody you feel like you could talk to."

Which sort of highlights the problem, doesn't it! Like, hey, you can actually look at buildings and talk to strangers, technically, in any place that exists but in New York people have actually bought into the notion that their most mundane experiences and interactions are more special because someone might write a movie about them someday.

And the trailer:

Happy birthday, Gene Simmons!

We don't usually do this kind of thing here. But! Seeing as Kiss is the second-greatest band from New York who liked to get gussied up, we're making an exception! Anyway, Kiss co-founder Gene Simmons was born on this date in 1949 (born Chaim Witz in Haifa, Israel). He and Queens native Paul Stanley formed Kiss in New York in December 1972.

Simmons, of course, is also featured in two of the greatest motion pictures ever made.

Runaway from 1984:


And! The masterpiece: Kiss Meets the Phantom of the Park from 1978:


Meanwhile, AMC took to Coney Island to discuss Kiss Meets the Phantom of the Park (via Kinetic Carnival)


We imagine Gene will be doing some really low-key today to celebrate.

Meet the young real-estate moguls in this week's Page Six Magazine

[Image via Harper's Bazaar]

This week's Page Six Magazine features under-30 real-estate moguls in the city. First, there's cover model Ivanka Trump, the "mogul-ette" who helps run her father's real-estate business. 

Though she is, as defunct lad magazine Stuff once put it, “hot enough to liquefy your assets” — whatever that means — she’s smart enough to do it, too. “My passion is real estate,” she says. Discussing a new Trump property in the Dominican Republic, she says, “We sold 63 estate lots for $365 million, on a price per square acre standpoint which rivals homes in Greenwich, Conn. That was done in six hours a year ago with 20 percent hard deposits.” Even though much of this is incomprehensible, what’s clear is that Ivanka means business. “I rarely go out past midnight,” she says. “I get up between 5:45 and 6 a.m. and ride my beach cruiser bike around the loop in Central Park for exercise. It's cantharric."

Oh, and earlier in the piece:

The double lariat necklace around Ivanka’s neck is from her jewelry line, aptly called the Ivanka Trump Collection, which launched in September 2007. According to Ivanka, the line is “designed off my personality and my aesthetic.” The diamond tassel she’s wearing today, for example, is “feminine but with a modern twist on old Hollywood.” It retails for $140,000 at Ivanka’s marquee store on Madison Avenue.

The good stuff comes in the sidebar, though, where we meet the real sweethearts. Like Ben Shaoul!

According to his feature:

At the tender age of 19, Ben dropped out of college in Miami to buy a building in New York and begin his rise to mini-mogul status. Since moving to New York in 1997 and setting up shop in Soho, though, he’s made enemies with East Village hipsters who accuse him of gentrifying their gritty hood. He reportedly even threatened squatters at 120 St. Mark’s Place with a sledgehammer. And he’s not afraid of getting his hands dirty in other ways, either: “I’ve unclogged toilets, laid brick, done dry wall,” says Ben. “I’ve been doing this since I was 19, which is longer than a lot of the older guys.”

Previously on EV Grieve:
Landlord accused of harassing longtime tenants

Why the Village East Cinemas will be showing documentaries all this week

The Post explains:

It used to be that movies in the documentary category had to play for at least three consecutive days in 12 different cities, sometimes resulting in token showings at off hours in the hinterlands.
But now, to be nominated for an Oscar for a full-feature documentary, the films have to play at least twice a day for seven consecutive days in both Manhattan and Los Angeles before the end of August.
That's why the city is overstuffed with documentary screenings this week, with a dozen flicks opening here to make the cut.
The Village East Theater at Second Avenue and East 12th Street is offering two showings a day of the documentaries "Loot," "Fuel," "Crossing Borders," "An Omar Broadway Film," "War Games," "The Choir," "No Subtitles Necessary: Laslo and Vilmos," "The Dalai Lama Film" and "Blessed is the Match."

Beats Indiana Jones on all the screens.

The East Village per-man, per-truck moving wars continue

OK. Given the signs we've seen last week. Do we hear $15?

The good life in New York movies (1987 version): cardigan and wine edition

Catching up with a good Goldenfiddle post from last week:

1987, Fatal Attraction, Glenn Close’s character makes Michael Douglas’ character a spaghetti dinner in her white on white on white New York City apartment. Opera blares from the stereo as he uncorks a bottle of wine. He wears a blue button-down shirt and a navy-blue cardigan, with the sleeves rolled up. Clearly, he is living the good life.


Later that same year, 1987, Wall Street, Daryl Hannah’s character makes Charlie Sheen’s character a spaghetti and sushi dinner in his newly renovated, faux-demolished New York City apartment. Opera blares from the stereo as he uncorks a bottle of wine. He wears a white button-down shirt and an argyle cardigan, with the sleeves rolled up. Clearly, he is living the good life.

The following photos are presented without comment

Move-in day for some NYU students. At 11th Street and Third Avenue. Sunday morning.

At the Staten Island Yankees game

Last Sunday, Mrs. Grieve and I went to our first S.I. Yankees game of the season. Unlike what the Yankees (and Mets) are charging (and will be charging) for tickets and food and booze, an S.I. game seems downright cheap. So to speak.

Transporation: S.I. Ferry (free, of course)
Tickets: They range from $5 to $13
Beer: $5 for a 16-ounce draft

Anyway, here are several shots from the game and ride. There are more on Flickr. Several home games remain this season.

Wikipedia's whoppers

In the Post today, Steve Cuozzo takes a look at Wikipedia's New York City entry. Let's just say it's not very accurate. Cuozzo writes:

[W]hen it comes to the city's geography and streetscape, Wikipedia can be wildly out of date - like its notoriously wrong-headed story on Hunts Point, which (to the neighborhood's dismay) cites 20-year old crime data.

Other entries read like dumb bus-tour guides' off-base spiels. One states that the East Village "is considered part of the Lower East Side" - by morons, maybe, but not by anyone who has ever crossed Houston Street. Nor was the East Village "formerly known as the Bowery."

Changes on East Houston; coming soon -- the Lee

From the Times:

Months may pass before the city’s planning commission decides on a 111-block rezoning of the East Village and the Lower East Side. That rezoning could allow for larger buildings on the neighborhoods’ major streets.

But the connective tissue between the neighborhoods, East Houston Street, is already showing signs of change, as for-sale signs go up and buildings fall — whether because of the proposed rezoning or despite it.

The Lee, for example, is a 12-story glass-and-masonry tower rising at Pitt Street on the site of a former boys’ club. Its nearly 100,000 square feet of space will hold 263 rental units, almost all studios.

In recent years, rentals on East Houston, like the hulking Avalon Chrystie Place and the Ludlow, have catered to the luxury market. But even if the Lee does have similarly large dimensions, as an “affordable” complex it is intended for quite different tenants.

For 105 of the units, the rent will be about $700 a month if the renter moves in from a nearby location and earns no more than 60 percent of the median income, or about $30,000, said David Beer, a director of Common Ground, a nonprofit group based in Manhattan and the Lee’s developer. Applications will be accepted starting in January.

Another day, another film shoot

Still, this looks like an interesting project...the later years of Quentin Crisp, starring John Hurt.

Activity at the former site of A. Fontana Shoe Repair

What's going on at the former location of the A. Fontana Shoe Repair on 10th Street past Second Avenue? The shop, there for 45 years, closed in late February. I didn't spot any workers or construction permits when I walked by...And there will be no sarcastic asides about bank branches, yogurt shops or Duane Reades. Anything is possible.
If you're new to this...Jeremiah has provided thoughtful coverage of Fontana's this past year.