We don't know what to say about this

An aside: Because all the models I know drink Guinness.

Paying attention to the little things

This plaque is on a building on East Ninth Street between Avenue A and First Avenue. I'm always happy that such tributes survive through the years. Can easily see some new builinding owner or creepy super be like, "Who in the &*&^%$ is Astor Piazzolla...?" and take it down.

By the way, I wasn't familiar with him either until I first saw this plaque some years back.

No room for mom and pop in the neighborhood

Hate to say it, but this was all too inevitable. From this week's issue of The Villager:

Discount stores, ethnic restaurants and small local businesses line the south side of E. 14th St. along the stretch of Alphabet City. Many of these congenial mom-and-pop shops have been serving the lower- and middle-income Lower East Side and Stuyvesant Town communities for decades with their affordable prices and personal customer relationships. But it is becoming more and more difficult for these establishments to survive, caught between rising rents and gentrification. Charlies, at 532 E. 14th St. between Avenues A and B, a neighborhood staple for the past 41 years, is the latest to fall victim to this trend.

Bonnie Rosenstock's article says Charlies will shutter at the end of this month.

“I’ve been coming here since I was 7 or 8,” said a 46-year-old Hispanic woman. “We need to have our community stores. This is what keeps the neighborhood healthy. There is so much greed that is destroying the neighborhood.”

[Image: Villager photo by Bonnie Rosenstock]

Richard Price on the Lower East Side: "This place is like Byzantium"

There's a feature on Bronx-born Richard Price today in the Times. His new novel, Lush Life, is set in the Lower East Side, and concerns a seemingly random murder.

Excerpts from the article:

About the Lower East Side today, Mr. Price said, “This place is like Byzantium. It’s tomorrow, yesterday — anyplace but today.” He added that he sometimes thinks of the neighborhood as a very busy ghost town, where many of the ghosts milling around still speak Yiddish.

His grandparents got their start in the Lower East Side, he explained, and while Mr. Price was growing up his father worked here as a window dresser for the many small clothing shops that used to be an important part of the neighborhood economy.

“In a way the whole place has come full-circle in five generations,” Mr. Price said. “A hundred years ago there were Jews trying to claw their way out of here, and now the descendants of those people are paying $2,000 a month to live in what used to be their tenements.”

[Price image by Sara Krulwich/The New York Times]

East Ninth Street between A and First Avenue, 7:40 a.m., March 1

The bicycle orphans of the East Village

I've always been fascinated by the numerous bicycles chained to just about anything in the neighborhood. Difficult to tell sometimes which ones are still still being used, and which ones are abandoned. Back before I had a camera, I'd pass by this one carcass of a bike on East 10th Street near Second Avenue. Seemed as if every time that I walked by, another piece of the bike was missing. Eventually, the chain was the only thing left. (I kind of figured it was some awful ongoing art project.)

Several years back, there was a woman's vintage bike chained to the light pole in front of Sophie's. It was never touched. Eventually, it was said that the bike belonged to a young woman who did some work at the now defunct Le Tableau a few doors down. She was killed one night after getting hit by an oncoming subway. It was an accident that didn't get much, if any, press. The bike remained there for nearly a year. Then one day it was gone.

Thinking the same thing: NYU dorm!

Funny, how we all had the same thought a few weeks back when we noticed the bodega on the southeast corner of 14th Street and 3rd Avenue and adjoining businesses were vacated. (The bodega just moved around the corner.) Given the proximity of still-kinda-new NYU dorms...well, we'll let Scoopy take over at The Villager in his column this week:

The corner screams out, “Development site!” and more specifically, “Another N.Y.U. dorm!” After all, the location is right in the middle of N.Y.U.’s E. 14th St. dormitory nexus. But Kelly Franklin, an N.Y.U. spokesperson, told us, “We have not been looking at this site nor has anyone approached us about it.”

I would like to add: YET.

"Sophie’s can continue sans 'mixologists' or beer sommeliers"

This week's New York magazine has a short piece on Sophie's staying the same, titled "Dive Alive: How did Sophie's survive?"...Nothing new in the story, but it's always nice to see how much the bar means to people. (One note: The article didn't mention Mona's.)

[Photo by Jeremiah Moss]

Updated: Scaffolding collapse at St. Brigid's

The high winds we had here last night helped bring down the scaffolding in front of St. Brigid's on Avenue B. At 6:45 a.m., cops had things blocked off from 8th Street to 7th Street. And several news crews were on hand preparing to go live with a report. (Putting a reporter in front of fallen scaffolding makes for riveting local news!) No injuries were reported.

In any event, this will only help the Archdiocese of New York try to sell the idea that the church needs to be razed. For an NYU dorm, we're sure. Or some fancy high-rise condos.

Bob Arihood's excellent Neither More or Less has many more photos (like the one he took above). While you're at his site, look around at this amazing photography and narrative of the neighborhood.

Saving St. Brigid's

To be honest, plenty of things need saving in the East Village -- St. Brigid's chief among them. There's a "keep the flame alive" party tonight at Solas. Find the info at the Save St. Brigid's Web site. (Plus, you may see Matt Dillon there...uh, at Solas, not the Web site.)

Loretta On The Roof - 1990

No idea how we came across this footage. It's described as: "Loretta on East 10th Street Rooftop. Summer of 1990. Remembering the day she moved into Manhattan. I miss the Old New York."
Yeah, we do too.

Remembering yesteryear at Sophie's

Photographer Ali Smith worked the day shift at Sophie's in the early '90s. During that time, she captured all the regulars who helped make the place what it was. (Sadly, this was before our time, so we never got to meet characters like Jimmy Tokens and Degenerate John who are featured in her photos.) Yesterday, Ali put up four framed photos from her time there. If you're at the bar, take the time to look at -- and appreciate -- her work.