Andrea Peyser does not like the Sex and the City movie (or, apparently, men in pastel shirts)

So New York Post Columnist of the Year Andrea Peyser caught the first screening of Sex and the City yesterday. What did she think?

In a roomful of women who looked as if they hadn't digested in months - and scant few breathing men - I saw the big-screen version of "Sex and the City," an excruciating paean to Manhattan, Manolos and menopause that should have been sponsored by Depends.

When did the story of four aging broads - and these women are about as far from being "The Girls" as Phyllis Diller is from puberty - turn into a horror show?

Time and the tyranny of the camera close-up have not been kind to Sarah Jessica Parker, who at 43 looks positively ghoulish as the still-single Carrie Bradshaw.

Her litany of lifestyle impossibilities continues to mount like her facial blemishes - a rent-controlled apartment, dozens of $525 pairs of stilettos, and a noncommittal, mega-rich boyfriend, Mr. Big. Sadly, the only thing large about Chris Noth these days is his protruding gut.

Ouch.

I spied a gaggle of gals who looked as if they'd eaten recently. I asked, Did you like it?

"Loved it!"

You can't be from New York, can you? "No, Connecticut," she said.

"Better than Indiana Jones!" trilled only the second man I saw. But this guy wore a pastel shirt. Figures.

I predict huge success in the multiplex. New Yorkers know better.

"Sex" sucks.

Hmm.

Well, it's really easy to make fun of a movie like this; it's even easier to make fun of the people who may enjoy this movie. Oh. And not to mention the looks of the actors in the movie. (Chris Noth fat? SJP ghoulish? C'mon.)

I wish Andrea would have written about the real problem with the movie -- how it ruined New York City. It's a subject worth repeating. Maybe she took a different route because the Post covered this a few weeks back. But is saying that Chris Noth has a beer gut do much to bring attention to the rampant commercialization, sterilization and development that the movie helped spawn here?

I invite anyone who may be new to this subject to read the following articles at Jeremiah's Vanishing New York:

How the cupcake crumbled

A plea to SJP

How SATC killed NYC

Related today:
Fashion review: 10 Years Later, Carrie Coordinated (New York Times)

What's happening here?

Construction continues in the front of 83 E. 7th St. near First Avenue. But never when I happen to be around. Otherwise I'd ask what's going on...Did I miss some news that this is going be be a cafe? Restaurant? Etc.?

Just asking

Once again, another tragedy. Does this crane look secure? Just asking. Can't tell. Too many of them around town.

Earlier on EV Grieve:

Accidents waiting to happen?

Here's to a "relaxing" weekend in the city!

Here's the real sex and the city. (OK, groan.)
Flanagan11 has these on his YouTube page. As he writes, "Some commercials that aired on Manhattan public access in the late 1970s during Al Goldstein's Midnight Blue program. The Taj Mahal has since been replaced by Kosher Deluxe restaurant and The Retreat has been replaced by the Hong Kong Trade Development Council."

[Pretty tame but likely NSFW]

A Win Won situation

I continued my walk around the construction-filled Fulton Street area in search of small shops surviving (or not) in the shadow of development hell.

I came across the Win Won Chinese restaurant that sits on Liberty Place just off of Maiden Lane. At least I think it's the Win Won. Hard to tell with Liberty Place closed for construction.

To access the Win Won, you simply need to mosey down this inviting-looking passageway.


I stopped by a little before noon. No one was dining inside, where you're treated to a view of darkness and construction debris. The place seems to do a healthier delivery business.


For the record, I ventured further down the sidewalk to check out this other store front. Not much going on. The front door was open that led to a small hallway. I didn't stick around.



In any event, sure, the Win Won isn't the greatest Chinese restaurant that ever existed, but it's certainly serviceable. More important, though, it's an inexpensive alternative to an area now catering to a more upscale market. With more and more condos going up, this area caters to the yunnies. Witness the openings in the last year of more familiar white-bread chains on Maiden Lane, including yet another Subway, Papa John's, Chipotle and one of those expensive custom salad places. Meanwhile, the mom-and-pop places for non-executive-type workers are seemingly becoming scarce.

For now, the Win Won continues to operate while the 20-story Wyndham Garden Hotel at 20 Maiden Lane inches skyward. This one is a doozy: The hotel is L-shaped and wraps around three low-rise buildings that sit on the corner of Maiden and Nassau.

These shots by Lofter1 on Wired New York provide a better look.

"The Lying, the Bitch, and the Wardrobe"

A review of a review! From Gawker's Ryan Tate:

Save for the use of the lame adjective "anti-sophisticated," Anthony Lane's New Yorker evisceration of Sex And The City is a schadenfreudian delight. Among the movie's crimes: Carrie whores herself out for a custom closet (women in the audience actually applauded); Carrie is more concerned about losing her access to nice clothes than about the disintegration of her marriage; and, apartment-hunting in a predominately Chinese neighborhood, Miranda, in a charming bit of racism, cries out, "White guy with a baby! Let’s follow him." Lane says the film is often "pornographic—arouse the viewer with image upon image of what lies just beyond her reach" and suggests the subtitle "The Lying, the Bitch, and the Wardrobe."

Meanwhile, here's Lane's reaction to Miranda's "white guy with a baby" line: So that’s what drives these people: Aryan real estate.

Then it gets really beautiful:

At least, you could argue, Miranda has a job, as a lawyer. But the film pays it zero attention, and the other women expect her to drop it and fly to Mexico without demur. (And she does.) Worse still is the sneering cut as the scene shifts from Carrie, carefree and childless in the New York Public Library, to the face of Miranda’s young son, smeared with spaghetti sauce. In short, to anyone facing the quandaries of being a working mother, the movie sends a vicious memo: Don’t be a mother. And don’t work. Is this really where we have ended up—with this superannuated fantasy posing as a slice of modern life?

"Bad" news for drummer and his West 11th Street home

From today's Post!

By LARRY CELONA and ADAM NICHOLS May 29, 2008 -- Thieves took more than $350,000 worth of jewelry in a Memorial Day raid on the Greenwich Village home of Bad Company drummer Simon Kirke, cops said.
The musician found the jewels missing from a safe when he returned home from a weekend out of town with his family. Two laptop computers worth $3,000 were also missing, cops said.Cops found the front and back doors of the West 11th Street apartment Kirke shares with his wife and four children unlocked with no signs of being forced, a police source said.
Kirke told them he couldn't remember whether he'd locked them.The Englishman was also unsure whether he had locked the safe inside the house before the family left, the source said.
Kirke was a founding member of the band Free, whose hit "All Right Now" reached No. 1in more than 20 countries.He set up Bad Company after Free broke up in 1973.That band sold 60 million records, including "Rock and Roll Fantasy" and "Feel Like Makin' Love."Since leaving Bad Company in 2002, he has been songwriting and occasionally performing. He made a how-to-play-drums DVD in 2006 titled "Lessons from a Legend."

And why did this take two Post reporters to cover? One to talk to cops, one to search Wikipedia?

Bonus!



Double bonus!

All is well at Stuy Town!

According to the Home Real Estate guide in today's Post anyway.

Says the article:

When it was announced in late 2006, it was one of those deals that knocked the wind out of you: The Stuyvesant Town/Peter Cooper Village complex - that beacon of middle-class Manhattan life - was being sold to Tishman Speyer for $5.4 billion. It remains the biggest real-estate transaction in New York City history.
Its residents were worried (68 percent of the 11,232 apartments in Stuy Town are rent regulated) and real-estate watchers wondered what would become of that massive 80-acre plot of land on the far East Side. Would some of the buildings be torn down and new ones go up? Would the place go condo? Would rent-stabilized residents be kicked out?
The short answer? None of the above. For many longtime Stuy Town residents, not much is different since the purchase. But that's not to say that there haven't been changes.
"We're focused on making it better," says George Hartzmann, managing director at Tishman Speyer. "That means focusing on the physical amenities, community activities, upgrading [apartments] and a lot of landscaping."

Yep, nothing but good things here! Keep going about your business!

Oh, well, there's this.

Meanwhile, back to the article. Sure, rents are going up...

"When I moved here, my one-bedroom apartment was $52.50," says Madeleine Sussman, who came to Stuy Town in 1949.
Sussman turned to her husband, Harold, who had moved to the complex a year earlier.
"What did you pay?"
"Fifty-eight dollars."
"Of course, that was a lot in those days," Madeleine adds.
Today, a one-bedroom in Stuyvesant Town starts at $2,950; two-bedrooms at $3,675; and three-bedrooms at $5,400. Peter Cooper Village (which has always had bigger and more expensive apartments) start at $3,250 for a one-bedroom, and $4,225 for a two-bedroom.
And those are the cheap units!

Golly! So what is a tenant to do?

And if the price sounds a bit high, Stuy Town has encouraged potential residents to take roommates.
Jill Durso, for instance, is splitting a one-bedroom with friend Christina Vargas.
"We converted it to a two-bedroom," says Durso. "They arranged to have a nice little wall put up, and we still have enough of a living room for our modest get-togethers."
Luckily, the one-bedrooms in Stuy Town are big. A typical one-bedroom measures around 755 square feet; a one-bedroom in Peter Cooper is around 947 square feet. (Two-bedrooms in Stuy Town average 943 square feet; at Peter Cooper they measure about 1,223 square feet.)
"I go to friends' apartments in the East Village, and they're paying more for the same amount of space," notes Durso.

The article does finally mention the rising rents, new money moving in (why not? they are wine tastings! ski trips! Hamptons shuttles!) and longtime residents getting the heave-ho, but...

That being said, one still gets the feeling talking to residents that the criticisms of Stuy Town are made out of love; longtime tenants are absolutely fanatical about the place - and not all of them object to newcomers.
"It's nice to see the young people," says Madeleine Sussman. "There was a population shift; most of the people who lived here together grew old together. And now it's still a comfortable place."
And new tenants seem to agree.
"I always said, it's the greatest suburb in New York," says Allison Kallish, who moved to a one-bedroom in Stuy Town two years ago. "I saw this parade of Little Leaguers, with bagpipes playing, walking through the [Stuyvesant] Oval back in April. How many suburbs do you see that in?"That being said, one still gets the feeling talking to residents that the criticisms of Stuy Town are made out of love; longtime tenants are absolutely fanatical about the place - and not all of them object to newcomers.
"It's nice to see the young people," says Madeleine Sussman. "There was a population shift; most of the people who lived here together grew old together. And now it's still a comfortable place."
And new tenants seem to agree.
"I always said, it's the greatest suburb in New York," says Allison Kallish, who moved to a one-bedroom in Stuy Town two years ago. "I saw this parade of Little Leaguers, with bagpipes playing, walking through the [Stuyvesant] Oval back in April. How many suburbs do you see that in?"

Condo owner who likes the finer things didn't appreciate bar with dirty floors or kids

While writing the previous post, I went to Citysearch to doublecheck the address for Ryan's Sports Bar on Gold Street, which recently moved to make way for some new condos. Anyway, while there, I found this patron's review. And he didn't like what he found!

I hope places like this close down soon

11/11/2007 Posted by jakesloanesq
We are all working on building a better downtown. I bought a 1.5 million dollar condo around the block from this place. I stopped in one weekday during lunch (i was off.) The place had 3 patrons at the bar, all of which looked worse then the other. The decor is lacking, the floors dirty, and the food was just ok. This place may be decent for someone who does not like finer things or if you are under-age. I went to Ryan's with my wife on a Thursday night to grab a quick drink before heading home. The entire place had kids drinking. We overheard a few kids talking about how Ryans is the only bar that lets the local college kids drink. I am not sure if anyone in the bar was 21 years old. Regardless, the building next to ryan's has been condemmed due to rodents. This was not a surprise because the rodents can be seen running on Gold street outside this dump.

I'm simply stunned a bar in New York had dirty floors! Hope it didn't bring the value down on his $1.5 condo! Anyway, Ryan's wasn't the greatest place around, but it had a divey ambiance to it that I appreciated --

Bonus review from a tourist:

Terrible pub with a very bad vibe!

07/27/2006 Posted by weesmcg
This is defiantly the worst pub visited in New York! Situated in a back alley near student accommodation its full of very young possibly underage drinkers at night time and it seems like a place where day time alcoholics go to try and escape their job in the financial district! Staff were quite rude and loud and only look after what seemed to be the regulars! The place is very dull, dark and no atmosphere probably due to where its situated! We werent made feel as welcome or at home as we were in other Irish pubs in New York! Very disappointed!!

Down on Fulton Street

As I've written before, my place of employment is near Fulton Street, that lovely stretch of misery between Broadway and Water. The street has been torn up for years. Meanwhile, businesses are seemingly struggling to survive. Still, there are some nice little spots tucked away on the side streets, like Ryan's, an Irish pub on Gold Street that's never too busy (except when the NYU and Pace kids get in with their fake IDs). Given the glitzy high rises going up nearby, you have to appreciate such a place. Haven't been there in a few months, so I thought I'd ... Oh. Shit.


Here's what remains of Ryan's and whatever was next to it. Torn down to make way for condos.


Well, at least Ryan's was able to move nearby. Meanwhile, I worry about some of the mom-and-pop shops on Fulton Street. Seems like someone is closing up all too often. And there's no place for them to go.


There's a nice cobbler on the street. An odd little jewelry store/barber stop combo. And the Blarney Stone.


Still making rubber stamps. But for how long?




So why are the little shops disappearing? Just look up.


Of course.

Earlier on EV Grieve:

Been on Fulton Street lately? What a treat!