Jeremiah's somber take

Jeremiah's Vanishing New York is an excellent blog that takes "a bitterly nostalgic look at a city in the process of going extinct." Plenty to be bitter about these days.

He wrote this yesterday:

I am still in shock from this sudden news: Beloved East Village dives Sophie's and Mona's are up for sale! Says the owner of both, "The neighborhood has changed so much...I love both bars, but they're dinosaurs now." This is bad fucking news for the East Village.

And so it begins, when depression set in

As seen in Page Six in the New York Post yesterday:

December 20, 2007 -- IT may be the final nail in the shared coffin of East Village dive bars. Two longstanding holes-in-the-wall, Sophie's on East Fifth Street and its sister spot, Mona's on Avenue B, are up for sale. "The neighborhood has changed so much," co-owner Bob Corton told Page Six. "I love both bars, but they're dinosaurs now." Corton plans to sell the low-lit saloons after the holidays. He has run Sophie's, which adopted its name from its original owner, the late Sophie Polny, since 1986. He opened Mona's in '89. Corton assured us he'll stay in the neighborhood but couldn't predict the future of his beloved drink tanks: "Once the places are sold, what happens to them is really out of my hands."

Updated: Sophie's and Mona's are alive and well!

St. Francis of Assisi hosts First Nativity Scene; 'there goes the neighborhod'

[Photo illustration by Derek Berg]

Earlier tonight, St. Francis recreated the scene of Christ's birth in a special ritual and Mass he held inside of a cave believed to be in a lawless part of New Amsterdman, inviting both his fellow friars and the townspeople to join in the celebration.

According to EVG reader St. Bonaventure: "The brethren were summoned, the people ran together, the forest resounded with their voices, and that venerable night was made glorious by many and brilliant lights and sonorous psalms of praise."

Another reader worried about the tourists and newbie settlers who may start flocking to this area, driving up the price of settlements and ushering in an era of more fur traders. Per the reader: "Great, another place selling beaver pelts."