A little window shopping

On Fifth Avenue....



...and Avenue B.



Or is it the other way around?

A non-buyer's market

Celebrate "Buy Nothing Day" at Union Square today with Reverend Billy. At 3 p.m.

EV Grieve Etc.: Mourning Edition

East Village preservation group gets a nice check (The Villager)

The most-ticketed block in New York City is 14th Street, between Seventh and Eighth Avenues. (The New York Times)

Commercial mortgage crisis looms (AP)

New Yorkers spent less on Thanksgiving this year (Runnin' Scared)

How to get legs like the Rockettes (Time Out)

Wal-Mart employee trampled to death by shoppers in Long Island (New York Post)

Being sappy

The Christmas tree stand on 14th Street near First Avenue in front of O'Hanlon's is ready for action. This is the first stand that I've seen open in the neighborhood. They should be up soon on Avenue A in front of TSP...on Second Avenue at St. Mark's Church in-the-Bowery and Houston near Norfolk.

Noted

The return of table tennis. From the Fashion & Styles section in the Times yesterday:

Grand Opening, a glass-fronted gallery space between tenement buildings on the Lower East Side, has old Chinese men playing hipsters on its table despite the language barrier. “People can communicate through their game,” the owner, Ben Smyth, 27, said.

[Photo: Rob Bennett for The New York Times]

"Where are all those wonderful folks now?"

From Page Six yesterday:

Eric Bogosian misses the dangerous and dirty old Times Square. In the monologist's upcoming novel, "Perforated Heart," his hero describes walking along the new "Deuce" between Seventh and Eighth avenues and being "jostled by tourists munching kosher hot dogs, their souvenir Playbills clenched in pale Midwestern fists . . . [taking] pictures of each other." He continues: "Thirty years ago, these same darkened doorways framed girls who chanted, 'Wanna go out?' 'Wanna party?' Prostitutes, drug dealers, pickpockets. Where are those wonderful folks now? Grown old. At home with their grandkids, or in drug rehab or in prison or pushing up daisies." The book hits stores next spring.

[Photo by Flo Fox via The Villager]

Dumpster of the day (night edition)

On East Seventh Street near Avenue C on Wednesday night.

Horse sense

I like this shot from a newsstand on Third Avenue in the 20s for two reasons...any store that sells so many horse racing publications is good with me...and anyplace still using a collectible New York Sun paper holder....

Live-blogging the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade!

Joking! But I am kind of being forced to watch it...(Send help.)

EV Grieve Etc.: Mourning Edition

Ugh: Five Rose's Pizza is closing Saturday (Jeremiah's Vanishing NY)

The rats are having a party in the EV/LES (The Villager)

Gray Line tour guides may strike (New York Times)

Christie's runk/punk auction results (Stupefaction)

"Anything for Thanksgiving?" (Ephemeral New York)

Strange Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade balloons (The Bowery Boys)

Wishing for the old days of the LES (BoweryBoogie)

A toasty Toyota in the EV (Curbed)

EV Grieve is here to help

Ray from Fairway shows how to carve a turkey.

"I don't know what to say, except that the whole neighborhood is in mourning"

A double-whammy on the P & G from the Observer.

First.

At the end of the year, the beloved corner bar at Amsterdam Avenue and 73rd Street will be forced to close. (New tenant? Bank. Fucking Branch.) Anyway, P & G's owners sign a new 20-year lease on the former Evelyn lounge space at 380 Columbus Avenue.

As the Observer reports, "The new venue will also have a more refined look than the previous stripped-down dive. One corner of the new L-shaped space, for instance, will feature a fireplace, chess tables and shelves of books. “I want to really do it up like a man’s study in deep burgundy and walnut,” [owner Steve] Chahalis said, explaining, “On Columbus Avenue, you can’t just open a shithole.”

But what about that great P & G sign? As the paper notes:

"Your heart almost gets ripped out every time these things happen," said City Councilwoman Gale Brewer, calling just past deadline on Tuesday to comment on the hallowed P & G bar's looming departure from its longstanding location at the corner of Amsterdam Avenue and 73rd Street.

"Many patrons of P & G call me all the time," Ms. Brewer said. "Even though it's not leaving the neighborhood, I hate to have it move -- and I don't know what happens with the sign."

"I don't know what to say, except that the whole neighborhood is in mourning."

Brooks has been following this story at Lost City...he has a nice tidbit about the new location.

EV Grieve Etc.: Mourning Edition

Two rooftop tumors must come down in the EV (Curbed)

The decline of yelling at people about stuff (Vice)

A fellow sewer steam aficionado (Bowery Boogie)

Renaming Citi Field (Runnin Scared)

How many hipsters does it take to change a lightbulb? (Erica Saves the Day)

One reason to give thanks for a new SATC movie (Colonnade Row)

Danny Hoch: "This ain't New York anymore" (New York Times)

Because nothing says Happy Thanksgiving more than a young Pilgrim holding a gun

And when will breeches, doublet and stockings with shoes make a comeback?

A little chicken before your turkey

On First Avenue in the 20s....this is just goofy.

Noted

"Priced out of Brooklyn? You might want to try Manhattan. Many neighborhoods in Brooklyn are now more expensive to live in than Manhattan neighborhoods (and I'm talking below 90th Street here), according to data compiled by StreetEasy.com for October 2008." (Daily News)

An EV Grieve All-Star (Cover) Salute to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Annex!

While the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Annex in SoHo doesn't officially open until Tuesday, sneak-preview tours are available.

In honor of this grand occasion, here's a cover-band tribute to some bands who have some sort of connection to NYC! (Please save any scorn/ridicule, etc. for the professionals. Like the Counting Crows. This isn't about making fun of kids in their local gymnasiums or bedrooms. Only a little bit.)

Anyway! Enjoy!

Atomic Kitten cover Blondie's "The Tide is High"



Billy Joel tribute band cover "Big Shot"



Counting Crows cover Joni Mitchell's "Big Yellow Taxi"



Lazaras covers four songs by the Ramones



A young woman in her bedroom covers Mariah Carey's "We Belong Together"



High school talent show: The Yeah Yeah Yeahs' "Maps"



A band does Kiss' "Detroit Rock City"



Welsh Valley Middle School 8th Grade Talent Show: Living Colour's "Cult of Personality" (pretty good!)



Turkuaz cover the Talking Heads' "Slippery People"



Devilwearspumas covers the New York Dolls' "Trash" in his bedroom



Aegis Band covers Mariah Carey




And, for no reason, Harvey Keitel does Elvis

Rico gets the hook(ah)?

Well, it looks as if Rico, the hookah joint on Avenue C between Ninth Street and 10th Street has closed. Or else they're "renovating" the space, which is suspiciously empty. IF, in fact, Rico has closed, this would mean there are only 417 hookah bars left in the East Village, aka the "hookah zone."

Joey Fatone talks plush potties, and bloggers everywhere are stumped to write funny, toilet-related headlines

Here's some video of Joey Fatone opening the public restroom thing in Times Square yesterday. (MTV.com)

MTV Shows

A Landmark article

So, what's doing with the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission? From today's Times:

A six-month examination of the commission’s operations by The New York Times reveals an overtaxed agency that has taken years to act on some proposed designations, even as soaring development pressures put historic buildings at risk. Its decision-making is often opaque, and its record-keeping on landmark-designation requests is so spotty that staff members are uncertain how many it rejects in a given year.

Ugh.