Stocking stuffers for St. Brigid's?

Hmm, is that big enough to hold $20 million? On Avenue B and Eighth Street at the entrance to the St. Brigid's renovation.

Actually, we're still infuriated

Daily Candy checks in today with their take on the new Cooper Square Hotel (aka, "Dildo of Darkness"):

Cooped Up
The Cooper Square Hotel Opens

You can hate your neighbors only until you realize you love them.

So it was with The Cooper Square Hotel, which infuriated the testy East Village. Then came the post-construction reveal: Damn, this is one fine-looking, well-mannered new kid on the block.

An intriguing, modern glass tower, The Cooper has enough outdoor garden space to make you think the 6 train added a stop in L.A. The beautiful library off the lobby has a fireplace, bookshelves filled with eclectic volumes from Housing Works, and an honor bar for everyone. (Yes, even off-the-street riffraff like us.) Govind Armstrong’s long-awaited Table 8 outpost will open in February.

Overnight guests (yippee, no more fleabag St. Mark’s hotels!) won’t want to leave, what with the indie movies in the minibar, Red Flower amenities, three bathrobes, and insane city views.

It’s enough to inspire a block party.

Happy holidays from the state comptroller! (And MTA!)

The Post reports today:

It keeps getting worse.

State Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli warned yesterday that the city faces budget gaps of $3.5 billion and $8 billion in the next two fiscal years -- far higher than previous forecasts.

That's a sharp increase from the $1.3 billion and $5 billion deficits Mayor Bloomberg projected last month in his budget plan for the 2010 and 2011 fiscal years. It even surpasses the state Financial Control Board's dire figures that came out just five days ago and put the city's budget gaps at $2.3 billion and $6.4 billion.

Meanwhile, subway and bus fare will probably increase to $3 next year!

Now let's go out and spend some money!

Good seats still available! Cheap!

Spotted on the subway platform on 14th Street and Eighth Avenue several weeks after the play closed. (And only after eight performances....)

Noted

Thanks to the tipster who pointed out an item that I had missed Friday: American Apparel is laying off hundreds of employees. We linked to a piece a few weeks back that claimed American Apparel was hiring.

Meanwhile! I didn't realize AA had vans. Do they deliver?

Adult Swim doesn't care for your vandalism, really, really, REALLY wants you to watch stupid King of the Hill

We continue to monitor what will likely be the most important news story of the year, if not our lifetime. As you read here exclusively last week, Bobby Hill was, at first, orphaned and maimed on the wall outside the Tile Bar. Then the satanic cult took Bobby's head and legs.

Anyway! Thanks to the tipster who reported yesterday that a NEW set of Hills were back at Seventh Street and First Avenue. Wow. Does Adult Swim have a Hill Swat Team who works OT on weekends...? Is there a warehouse full of Hanks and Peggys and Bobbys ready for such an emergency?




Oh, also noticed the ad on Lafayette and Great Jones.

Fall from Grace

I was curious how much longer the inspirational message would stay up at the Grace and Hope Mission at 114 Third Ave. near 14th Street. Workers have been pounding away at this place in recents weeks....



to turn it into a barf factory. It's now revealed.



UPDATED: As a commenter notes: I don't think this spot is going to be a Mitchell Banchik bar anymore. I belive this is where Robin Raj (the deli on the corner is relocating too).... The Robin Raj people told me they are moving here sometime between Christmas and New Years.

Jeremiah has some history on the Grace and Hope Mission here. By the way, even though the place shuttered in the fall of 2007, the Grace and Hope Mission's Web site is still up and running.

Noted

Took this shot at 13th Street and Fifth Avenue last night.

An incentive to walk

With subway and bus fares going up to like $25 a ride next year, the Post asked some advertising execs for ideas to raise revenue for the city's mass transit system.

Among their 10 ideas:

Free sample with your bag check? Marketers could pay the MTA and NYPD to slip product samples in your bag at any number of security checkpoints. The freebies might even take the sting out of the inconvenient search.

Rat-vertising: There is a veritable army of vermin "brand ambassadors" running through the subway tunnels. Put them to work for your brand!

Vanity metro cards: The best way to express yourself on the subway short of using a can of spray paint. Similar to custom postage stamps, you pay extra to pick out and order your custom card online.

Exclusive: It's really fucking cold out

EV Grieve's last-minute gift guide

At Avenue B and Fourth Street.

Articles that I didn't get around to reading

A Very Trump Christmas: At home for the holidays with Donald Jr. and family

Unsilent Night 2008

Last Saturday, composer Phil Kline did his latest "outdoor ambient music piece" ... New York magazine's Jonah Green was there for the Unsilent Night trip from Washington Square Park to Tompkins Square Park:

Ho, ho, ho

At Ricky's on 14th Street near Union Square.

Slipriani

With the snow/sleet/rain/shit coming down this morning, walking and driving were treacherous. Just ask the driver of this Cipriani truck, which ended up on its side on Second Avenue at 11th Street this morning around 8. This huge tow truck came along and pulled the Cipriani truck back upright. No word whether any Carpacio Alla Cipriana was damaged during the spill.

More Boss Hog

My photos from the Boss Hog show Wednesday night were pretty so-so. Luckily Gabi Porter was there from Prefix for some shots of Boss Hog and the crowd...but not me.



Here's one other shot from the EV Grieve camera:

I smell dead people

I've had some horrible neighbors...nothing quite like this, though. As the Post reports:

It smells like something at 201 E. 19th St., and it sure isn't Christmas.
The Missionary Sisters of Sacred Heart are suing two tenants in the Gramercy building who they say are creating an ungodly stench that's making their neighbors sick.
Gloria and Michael Lim have "caused noxious, foul and harmful odors to emanate from the [apartment] into the common areas of the subject building as well into other apartments," the nuns' suit says.
"The smells emanating from the subject premises are so horrible and potentially dangerous to the life, health and safety of the tenants" that "on one occasion the Fire Department . . . had to be called."
The odor on that occasion from the apartment was so awful that building workers had become "seriously concerned that the smell was the result of someone having died in their apartment and began ringing certain tenants who live alone to check in on them," the filing says.
When all those people were determined to be still kicking, the concerned firefighters zeroed in on the Lims' apartment, convinced the dead-person smell was coming from there.
They pounded on the door and when they got no answer, they started to break it down, the suit says. Gloria Lim eventually came to the door and asked what the "commotion" was, the suit says.
The firefighters entered the apartment, and Lim told them she was "smoking and drying fish."
When asked by The Post what caused the odors -- which court papers likened to "vomit or rotting meat" -- she only said: "I cook dried fish."

Ugh. The worst thing my neighbor does is play the one disco-y CD he owns over and over....

Never saw this one coming....

"Merry Christmas Baby" by the Ramones.

Spotted: First Raise Plow sign of the season

At 13th Street and Avenue B.

Exclusive: It's still snowing

And I've always noticed that people are especially nice during the first real snowfall of the season...five strangers smiled and said hello to me while I was walking through Tompkins Square Park.