Breathless at the Film Forum today and tomorrow. And it's 2-for-1 with Band of Outsiders.
Sunday, August 31, 2008
Tonight's forecast at Delicatessen: golden showers
Apparently some residents who live above Nolita hot spot Delicatessen -- with the glass-roofed lounge -- are unhappy with the party atmosphere that it created on their stretch of Lafayette Street. As the Post reports, "one unidentified building resident has taken matters into his own hands, emptying his bladder on the see-through ceiling from his apartment window above."
Mickey Campbell, 45, who has lived in the building for 18 years, tells the Post he "gets woken up nightly by garbage trucks and drunken patrons. The restaurant is filled with "f---ing wankers" and "yuppies, yuppies, yuppies." Delicatessen opened in July.
Oh, and the Post notes: Owners Susan Leonard, Mark Amadei and Stacy Pisonne opened Cafeteria, a 24-hour upscale diner in Chelsea, a decade ago. It quickly became a staple "Sex and the City" shooting location.
That article from the Times on becoming New Yorkers
There was a lot of reader feedback to Cara Buckley's article in the Times from Tuesday on "the sometimes painful adjustments faced by newcomers to New York City."
As she reports in the City Room, "scores of people, it seems, were reminded anew of the growing pains, and delight, that often go hand in hand with moving to the city. Readers’ comments ran the gamut, from lonely newcomers who still felt lost to people who remembered their early days here with great tenderness."
"A few native New Yorkers insisted that it was the arrivistes, rather than people born in the city, that acted standoffish and brusque, and gave the city its reputation for being rude."
Dennis Kelly, who grew up in Long Island and works in Queens, wrote:
As someone who regularly holds doors open for other people, and who is born and raised in New York I find that the rudest “New Yorkers” are younger professionals transplanted from other places that are trying a little too hard to be “real” New Yorkers. Everyone knows the stereotype from movies, and they try to live it. Their only guides along this path are other transplants who have “made it” because they have that “real” New Yorker attitude. Your article only managed to further entrench this stereotyping. Rude is not the new black. It never has been.
Saturday, August 30, 2008
"Nightlife destination" mania continues: 10 new applicants for full liquor licenses on the docket
Save the Lower East Side! brings news regarding the Community Board 3 committee that reviews liquor licenses. Its first meeting of the season is Sept. 15, 6:30 p.m., at 200 E 5th St., corner of Bowery.
Rob reports:
As Among the 40 applications, there are no fewer than 10 new applications for full liquor licenses (called "op" for "on premises" -- scroll down to item 21).
They're everywhere: one on Grand; another just around the corner from it on Eldridge Street; Chrystie is getting hit; around the corner on Rivington too; Allen off Stanton (right next to Epstein's Bar); 2 on 10th Street. Some are restaurants, some are bars; all add to the "nightlife destination" mania, the rising commercial rents, the selling off of the LES to Generation Bloomberg.
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."
Friday, August 29, 2008
"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.
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.
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.
Thursday, August 28, 2008
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]
Well, LOOK CLOSER!
[On Avenue B, between 9th Street and 10th Street]
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)
Al's Bar, 108 Bowery, circa 1987-88. (Closed in 1994)
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