Dance Parade 2009 in Tompkins Square Park

I'd upload more photos from the event, but I have Dance Fever. Slum Goddess has photos...so does Melanie...and Runnin' Scared.

More photos from the Dance Parade 2009

I may also have my files mixes up.

Day Two

Details.

The recession's hot sellers: running shoes, Spam, Dinty Moore, tanning products

Another recession-related trends story. (AP)

If our Lord wasn't testing us, how would you account for the proliferation ... of this obscene dance music, with its gospel of ... relaxed morality?

Heh. Anyway, the Dance Parade Web site seems to be on the fritz at the moment... So to other sources for this reminder:

DANCE PARADE presents New York City's Third Annual Dance Parade!

All are invited to join us in a historic event demonstrating that dance truly is an expressive form of art. The third annual New York City Dance Parade will attract nearly 7,000 dancers and twice as many supporters to the streets of Manhattan on Saturday, May 16th in celebration of culture, community and the art of movement.

Performances by dance companies and individual dancers will range from Ballet to Breakdance, the Hustle to Club. Colorful floats, live bands and DJs will waltz, tango and pirouette down Broadway from 32nd Street, past Union Square, across Saint Marks Place and end at Tompkins Square Park with a dance festival finale in the park through sunset.

The parade will run from 1pm - 3pm and the festival from 3pm - 7pm. This is a free event.

Meanwhile, the streets are prepped... What are the cops expecting?

Gabba Gabba Goofs

"One of the publicists coordinating press for the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame Annex event honoring Joey Ramone the other day needs a remedial course in rock history. 'An assistant at a well-known p.r. agency e-mailed the event publicist to ask if Joey Ramone was going to be available for interviews,' said one insider." (Page Six)

Related:
Gabba Gabba Goof! Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Finally Honors the Late Joey Ramone (The New York Observer)

Noted

"Despite a commanding lead in the polls, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg has already spent $18.7 million on his re-election campaign, nearly twice as much as he had spent at this point in the 2005 race." (The New York Times)

"Richard knew how to look at something and then manage to pass it on"

The Praise Day for Richard Leck (pictured above in a photo from the 1960s) was held last Saturday at the Bowery Poetry Club. Unfortunately, I couldn't make it. However, his publisher, Karen Lillis, who organized the tribute, did a recap on her MySpace page.

Here's part of her review:

Bowery Poetry Club proprietor and poetry guru, Bob Holman wrapped up the afternoon for us with some words about Richard, followed by a reading of both poems and prose. "I didn't know Richard, but of course, we all know him now," Bob began. "The readings today have been exquisite because the writing is exquisite, because Richard knew how to look at something and then manage to pass it on."

Just Cause

EV Grieve Etc: Mourning Edition

Full Chinatown fire coverage (BoweryBoogie)

Markey Hayden Bena beaten last Friday outside TSP (Neither More Nor Less)

Next stop Times Square (East of Bowery)

Two-minute warning: New York is getting a professional lingerie football team (Esquared)

Last-minute work on the arch (Washington Square Park)

Something cool (Stupefaction)

How Google gets its street views (Jeremiah's Vanishing NY)

More annoying T-shirts (Flaming Pablum)

Mercury Dime cafe to close on Fifth Street (Eater)

Thanks to Scoopy for the mention in this week's column (The Villager, second item)

The World of DVD is closing: So how many adult shops are left on Eighth Avenue?

Walking up to the Times building on Eighth Avenue...across from the Port Authority...



I notice the World of DVD, located on Eighth Avenue just below 40th Street, is going out of business. (Technically, it's going out for business.)



I go inside to check the sales. The usual stuff -- with a dash of crapola B movies upfront (who knew John Cena was in so many films?) to make it seem a teensy legit. The "buddy booths" are upstairs, where two men are standing, waiting for something. Nothing much doing. They barely glance my way. Another man stands in the back. He's holding a mop. The row of booth-style peeps are empty.



How the shop looked a few years back...



So yeah, it's very old news that the XXX joints of Times Square past — the Major Midtown Wanton Hussy Belt is my favorite description of previous eras — are gone, replaced by the corporate sheen of multiplexes and chain stores. Still, a touch of the seedy element remains. But what is left? I continue north on Eighth Avenue. There's the Show World Center there on the right, featuring DVDs, lingerie, toys and booths. It survives for now.



Then there's Gotham City, which sits next to the Lace Gentlemen's Club between 43rd Street and 44th Street.



Signs promise "live fantasy girls." On the second floor. I take a look. I figure they're old signs from the glory days. Uh, well, no. On the third floor, three women sit in front of peep booths. One of them may have been a man. Though probably not. The woman closest to the stairs gives me the rundown: "$30 for a strip show and $40 for a masturbation show." She ends her sales pitch by saying, "You can totally masturbate!"

Totally?

Moving along...

The infamous Playpen was an adult-oriented mecca along the southwest side of Eighth Avenue and 44th Street. That whole parcel came down in late 2007 to make way for whatever blandness the Tishman Realty Corporation has in mind.




And as Jeremiah noted, the northwest corner of 44th Street and Eighth Avenue is ready for demolition...the building housed two adult DVD stores...(one of the stores moved to 37th Street and Sixth Avenue.)





Then, apparently, there is another Gotham City on Eighth Avenue, this one between 47th Street and 48th Street. This store also promises "live fantasy girls." On the second floor. The booths are in the back. You can pretend to browse for lingerie in the front section of the floor. One woman is on duty near the booths yesterday for the post 9-to-5 crowd. She looks at me, and makes a hissing noise. "Tssssssssssssst." And motions for me. I wave and head back down the stairs, pretending to look at a thong first.




So. On Eighth Avenue between 40th Street and 50th Street, I saw the following:

Three stores that sell DVDs and toys. They feature viewing booths.
Two stores with "live girls."
One gentlemen's club.

OK, six...

There are also three adult DVD stores on 40th Street between Seventh Avenue and Ninth Avenue.
Cheetahs Gentlemen's Club is on 43rd Street between Eighth Avenue and Seventh Avenue.
Private Eyes Gentlemen's Club is just west of Eighth Avenue on 45th Street, next to the Al Hirschfield Theatre.
I'm sure there are other adult-theme stores in the immediate vicinity. This is simply what I see on this trip.

According to the Times, there were 96 sex-oriented sex shops on Times Square in 1977; down to 35 in 1987.

In any event, I see more of the winker-feeler-groper-looker set in other areas of Times Square, the sparkly new part with the chain stores and big window displays, such as this one on 42nd Street and Seventh Avenue...




For further reading:
Questionable prostitution charges at 8th Ave. porn shops (Chelsea Now)

A Bronx bomb?

The Wall Street Journal asks, "Can a stadium fail?"

Gimme some head

To the press release!:

GG Allin and Tesco Vee Limited-Edition Figures
To Be Released By Aggronautix

Aggronautix is set to release limited-edition figures of GG Allin "1991" and Tesco Vee of the Meatmen. Each "Throbblehead" figure stands at 7 inches tall, is made of a lightweight polyresin, and will be displayed in a tri-windowed box.

Both figures will be distributed by MVD Entertainment Group -- a company specializing in music-related distribution since 1986 -- and DKE Toys -- a wholesale distributor of urban/vinyl/designer art/objects/ toys/figurines.

"We normally don't carry bobbleheads but I was floored that the folks at Aggronautix would attempt this project," said Dov Kelemer CEO of DKE Toys. "I figured that if I broke down and made an exception to actually put this (anti-) bobblehead in my collection that others would feel the same. GG Allin... WTF!?!?!?!"

The idea first surfaced two years ago when Aggronautix pitched the GG figure idea to Merle Allin, GG's brother.

"I had been thinking about doing a GG figure for a while, so when the guys came to me with the idea, I was into it," said Allin. "The proofing process took a long time, but we got it right. The doll looks really good and I'm happy with it."

Aggronautix soon discovered another likely personality to polyresinate, Tesco Vee. He states, "As a toy collector of two decades, and classic bobble head collector, imagine just how geeked I became, when informed that yours truly would enter the pantheon of 'Throbblehead' punk rock losers, along with poopy soulmate GG Allin!"

The figures are now available for purchase on http://www.aggronautix.com and http://www.seeofsound.com will soon be available at many independent retailers, comic shops, tattoo parlors, etc.

Aggronautix is currently working on a Dwarves "Two-Headed Throbble" to be released this summer.

Your daily Zips update

Yesterday, a fellow was tearing up the entryway at the former Zips space on Avenue B and and Fifth Street...

As it once looked...



I saw a pack of kids standing in the doorway last night...What were the kids doing?After the group moved on, I went to investigate... Ah!

Making another run at the Border

Border Burrito on Third Avenue was closed this entire NYU school year...




In recent weeks workers are busy inside...perhaps to have it ready to go for when the NYUsters return this August...



Meanwhile, is the sidewalk out front between 11th Street and 12th Street getting ready for scaffolding?

This baby can really moooove

The Sunburnt Cow's "Moo Mobile" usually parks on Avenue C.... (Uh, near the restaurant, of course...) Does the horn make the sound of a cowbell? Does the driver yell "don't have a cow man" to other drivers in traffic? Does this van go to the drive-in to watch moo-vies? If a tire gets a puncture, is it a beef-flat?

Heh. Oh jeez, that's bad.

Meanwhile, I'm hoping that Slum Goddess and friends get a chance to peak inside to see what's what...

"Barnacle" Bill dies

The Villager has the feature obituary on William “Barnacle Bill” Scott. He died May 2. He was 44. Lorcan Otway writes the feature:

Born on July 8, 1965, “Barnacle” was well known in the East Village as a gentleman and a gentle man, in spite of his hardscrabble looks. Bill wore a nose ring, and had a large, upturned scar on the left side of his mouth, giving him the look of a pirate, but that was the farthest from the reality of this man.

He went from the Navy, where he was a petty officer, a bosun commanding small craft, to the Navy Reserve, and then honorably discharged became a merchant mariner, spending a good part of most years sailing American-flag vessels.

When not at sea, Bill spent a good deal of time in Tompkins Square Park, where he was as at home with the “crusties” as he was with the Village intelligentsia. His stories, whether of life at sea or East Village adventures, were punctuated with his trademark Homeric line, “It was not for nothing that...,” and on the story would wind.

[Villager photo by Lorcan Otway]

Reminder and a look back: The Ukrainian Festival...and St. George Schools

The Saint George Annual Ukrainian Festival
starts tomorrow... EV Grieve reader/commenter Mick passed along the link to some photos from St. George Schools on Seventh Street... no exact date is given on these two...just some time in the 1950s...