Looking at the Forward

As you probably read, Oscar-winning actress Tatum O'Neal was arrested last night on the Lower East Side, charged with buying crack and cocaine, according to reports. This happened just a few blocks from where she lived in the luxury condo building the Forward on East Broadway.

Hate to use O'Neal's sad arrest as a jumping off point...But! The Forward is one of the most unique buildings on the LES. In July 1998, the Times looked at the fascinating history of the building and its namesake newspaper, The Forward.

First published in 1897, the Yiddish-language Forward was born as Jewish immigration swelled the New York sweatshops and labor unions. It had close ties to the Socialist Party, taking the name of the successful Socialist paper in Berlin. The first editor, Abraham Cahan, had to leave Russia after revolutionary activities, and it was he who molded the paper into more than just a broadside of ideology.

Designed by George Boehm, the midblock Forward Building still towers over the three- to five-story houses and tenements in the area. A common story is that it was built in reaction to the capitalist symbolism of the 12-story Jarmulowsky Bank building, two blocks away at the southwest corner of Orchard and Canal Streets, but that building was begun a year after The Forward's.

In 1963 The Forward began an English supplement, and in 1974 it sold 175 East Broadway and moved to 49 East 33d Street, where it remains. The building was purchased by the Lau family, and for many years a Chinese church has occupied part of the space. The building was designated a landmark just as the owners proposed converting it to a hotel, but the conversion did not go ahead.

Now the building is covered with scaffolding, and the conversion will be to 39 loft-style condominiums, in an alteration designed by Alfred Wen that will include a restoration of the facade. Stephen Lau, acting as agent for his family's company, Chinese Center L.L.C., said that work would take about a year. ''We thought now is the right time,'' he said. ''We hope to have people from SoHo or Wall Street, not just Asians -- it's a bit out of Chinatown.''

[The excellent photo is on Flickr via Wally Gobetz]

These are a few of the photos you'll find when you search for "Carrie Bradshaw" on Flickr

(Forgot to add this with the original post.) Part of the Sex and the City tours includes a stop at this Perry Street townhouse in the West Village. Yes, this is the stoop that the Carrie Bradshaw character sits on in the show. (Actually, five different stoops were used; this one most frequently, I'm told by someone who really likes and knows the show.) According to Forbes: The show, which made a fifth character out of New York City, attracts fans to the Big Apple in droves, and locals cash in. Location Tours offers a three-hour bus tour that stops at shops and bars that have appeared on the show. The tour costs $40 a head, and its owners say it attracts as many as 1,000 people a week. Destination on Location Travel offers "set-jetting" weekends in New York, where groups of up to twelve women are shuttled around town and given the fantasy that they're one of the four Sex characters. The price: a hefty $15,000 per person.

Linda Stasi on the "destruction of neighborhoods by big-bucks bullies"

New York Post columnist and Turtle Bay resident Linda Stasi has had it with the construction and the cranes. She lets loose in a piece today:

Turtle Bay is just one neighborhood under siege by foreign real-estate moguls building artless, tacky buildings with Chinese money to sell to Europeans, Chinese, Russians and Middle Easterners - the only ones, with the exception of Michael Bloomberg, who can still afford to buy in Manhattan.
Yes, kids, the Russians and Chinese are coming - but they're coming with checkbooks, not bombs - even though the effect is the same: destruction of neighborhoods by big-bucks bullies.

Meanwhile, a graphic from the Daily News (March 2008):

A short walk on 8th Street/St. Mark's Place

As you probably know, Dallas BBQ packed up last fall...and you'd never guess what's taking its spot...

On the other side of the street, Joyce Leslie is moving to Broadway and Bond. Perhaps a good spot for a bank?

Good! Need to stock up!

Gulp. That crane.

Random, etc.

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?"