Is this finally the end for Astroland?

The Post reports:

The end could finally be here for Coney Island's fabled Astroland Park.

Longtime operator Carol Albert sent a recent letter to lawyers for the site's landlord, controversial developer Joe Sitt, threatening to shut down the 46-year-old amusement park if she doesn't get a two-year lease extension by Sept. 4 at 1 p.m. at the same rate, sources said.

Sitt, however, isn't budging.

"We are extremely disappointed that Carol Albert has decided to give up on the future of Coney Island when her current lease isn't even up for a number of months, said Sitt spokesman Stefan Friedman," adding Astroland would be replaced next summer by new "amusements, games, shopping and entertainment galore."

Astroland appeared doomed only last year until Albert and Sitt struck an 11-hour deal to keep the park open through 2008.

Many expected Astroland to return in 2009 since the city is at least a year away from implementing an area rezoning plan that, in part, would replace Astroland and other attractions with new amusements.

Bud select

Man watching an Anheuser-Busch truck receive a parking ticket the other day in the Financial District said to no one in particular:

"A beer truck getting a ticket? There oughta be a law against it."

Houston and Avenue A, 5:03 p.m., Aug. 29

[Photo by Mrs. Grieve]

Dee Dee B. Goode

Dee Dee Ramone in 1994. For a Friday.

"Apparently they will be serving beer in Hell"

That's Gawker commenter seancasio's reaction to news that Heidi Montag and Spencer Pratt, "the tumbleweeds from MTV's high-gloss people-spoof The Hills," are planning on opening an "upscale sports lounge" on 29th Street and Third Avenue in Murray Hill. [W via Gawker]

The grittiest, most realistic 90 seconds of any film ever set in New York City

Unfortunately, I couldn't find the particular clip that I was looking for from Taxi Driver. Or The French Connection. Or Sweet Smell of Success. Or...

But! We do have Weekend at Bernie's. Which is appropriate since this classic from 1989 is set during Labor Day weekend. I'm still trying to figure out what route our heroes took to work...



Meanwhile,...I can't remember what the critics thought. They loved it too, right?



Oh.

"I know this town, brother, because I got clothes on my back!"

This is to make up for the Weekend at Bernie's nonsense.

James Cagney in City for Conquest

Going away this weekend...

...or are you having, in the words of the Times, a "staycation?" As the paper notes:

It is a ridiculous word, but that hasn’t stopped the sprouting of so many Web sites with perky “I ♥ N.Y.” staycation ideas — Circle Line, a museum visit, a tenement tour and bialy on the Lower East Side.

And, admittedly, it’s a very fun word to say. Staycation. How was your staycation? My parents went on staycation, and all I got was this lousy T-shirt. Our son-in-law threw his back out on staycation.

As is so often the case, this new thing is nothing new in many parts of New York City. It’s just that it was never named by those level-headed working men and women who do not need a tarted-up pseudoword to enjoy a nice week without work.

Giving thanks to Mixed Use

Thank you to Patrick Hedlund at The Villager who wrote about this site and Bowery Boogie in his Mixed Use column this week.

[By the way, the photo is by Helen Levitt from 1971. Find 24 of her photos of New York City street scenes from seven decades right here.]

Scoopy sees the Christodora's fabled swimming pool

In The Villager this week, Scoopy gets a guided tour of the Christodora's fabled swimming pool and gym. He reports:

Wanting to get to the bottom of this mystery once and for all, this week we found ourselves gazing into an empty, gray, 50-foot-long pool in Christodora House’s basement. It was 8 feet deep at one end and sloped up from the center to a shallow depth at the other end. From the looks of it, it hadn’t been used for 50 years.

We also toured an adjacent gym with decrepit, old basketball backboards without rims and a high, cement-slab ceiling barely hanging onto rusted rebar and looking like it was about to come crashing down any second. The gym and pool spaces are zoned for community-facility use, meaning they could be offices for doctors or nonprofit groups. But, according to our tour guide, the building isn’t under any obligation or deadline to rent these spaces. In fact, Christodora tried to convert the gym to residential use a few years ago, but the city’s Board of Standards and Appeals rejected the condo tower’s hardship application.

Local dog groomer alienating Gossip Girl crowd

On 12th Street near Avenue B.

More fancy $12 cocktails coming to "the Lower East Village"

Eater brings news of Ella, the newest nightspot on the "Lower East Village," as its owners are calling the area. The bar will be at the site of the former Julep at 9 Avenue, next door to the Library.

A list of $12 specialty cocktails, such as the Plum Gin Fizz (Muddled sour plum, 2oz Gin, splash of simple syrup, splash of lemon juice, shaken in a Collins glass) will be served nightly. Bottles of beer are $7 and glasses of wine will range from $10 to $20.

"The Ella staff will fit the theme dressed in classic sexy and sophisticated 1920's attire."

BREAKING: Bed bugs infiltrating bedroom(s) of Avenue B

Looks like just another unassuming pile of trash of the curb on Avenue B, just past the Christodora, right?



Well, LOOK CLOSER!



[On Avenue B, between 9th Street and 10th Street]

Walking on Broome Street

On the north side of the street, near the Bowery.

Al's Bar, 1987-88

Just enjoying a shot of the Bowery via amg2000's Flickr page. Plenty more provocative photos there.

Al's Bar, 108 Bowery, circa 1987-88. (Closed in 1994)

An EV Grieve FYI

On 25th Street between 10th Avenue and 11th Avenue.

The Ziegfeld is a "movie palace," which is why the Mets game will be playing there tonight

First, a moment of appreciation for the Ziegfeld, one of two (the Paris Theatre on 58th) remaining single-screen movie theaters in Midtown. A rarity these days. As the Clearview Cinemas Web site notes:

The Ziegfeld Theatre was a Broadway theatre formerly located at the intersection of Sixth Avenue and 54th Street in Manhattan, New York City. It was built in 1927 and razed in 1966. The theatre was named for Florenz Ziegfeld, who built the theatre with financial backing from William Randolph Hearst.

The 'new' Zeigfeld Theater, built just a few hundred feet from the original Ziegfeld theater, opened in December 1969 and the movie house was one of the last big palaces built in the United States.

The theater features 1,169 seats, with 863 seats in the front section and 306 seats in the raised balcony section in the rear. The interior is decorated with sumptous red carpeting and abundant gold trim.

The Ziegfeld is, arguably, the last movie palace still showing films in Manhattan

Not to be Gloomy Grieve, but I do worry about this place. Aside from being a desired chunk of real estate in Midtown. It hasn't even been 1/5 full the last view times I've been there. (Granted, I'm not going to see, say, Iron Man, on opening night either.) I also enjoy their Hollywood Classics series.

So! What to make of this: The Mets-Phillies game is being shown there this evening. (This is becoming an annual event.)

As the press release for this evening's game at the theater touts, "Fans watching the action in larger-than-life style on the Ziegfeld's 50 foot x 23 foot viewing screen will participate in traditional Shea Stadium in-game entertainment and fan giveaways . . . Mr. Met and the Pepsi Party Patrol will also be on-hand to provide entertainment throughout the evening."

There will be beer sales and T-shirt launches too.

Tonight in Tompkins Square Park: Stand by Me

You guys wanna see a dead body?
Oh Vern. How you've lost that baby fat and become Jerry O'Connell and married Rebecca Romijn.

The "last of her kind" on the LES

The Times travels down to Stanton Street for a feature today on Lucita Cangemi, a Roman Catholic nun who has been a social worker in New York since 1961.

Sister Lucita is the last working New York member of an order of Catholic religious women, the Missionary Servants of the Most Blessed Trinity, who have served as social workers with Catholic Charities since 1953. Having taken vows of chastity, obedience and poverty, they became experts in prostitution, jails, diapers, rent, drugs and jobs.

“This is really not about me, but about the exodus of a community that has worked hard in New York, that loved New York and loved their work, and gave services to the city for 50 years,” Sister Lucita said.

The base of their operations for many of those years was on the Lower East Side. Long before the clever restaurants and dress shops, the streets and tenements were home to poor people. The same human problems run across every class and culture, but on the Lower East Side, those problems lacked the insulation and camouflage that money can buy. Another member of the community who just retired, Sister Marion Agnes, worked to salvage abandoned apartment buildings through sweat equity, and more recently converted an old Catholic school into affordable housing.

No word on what will become of her LES office. Maybe a hipster barber shop?

Awfully quiet here...everyone in Denver?

On the Lower East Side in Knickerbocker Village.