Public "Enemy"

How long will Christian Slater continue to haunt Times Square now that his show was canceled last week?

There will be hell to pay for this

So that was a large group of (ahem) motorcycle enthusiasts hanging out on Avenue A Sunday afternoon. What do you think, some 50-60 bikes in total on either side of the street between Seventh and Sixth? Not real big on having their picture taken, huh? But one fellow was nice enough to finally say OK to this shot.

Still a landmark

Good news from the City Room about the former school at 605 E. Ninth St. between Avenue B and Avenue C:

A justice in State Supreme Court has rejected a developer’s bid to overturn a 2006 decision by the Landmarks Preservation Commission to designate the former Public School 64 in the East Village, which closed in 1977, as a city landmark. The ruling is another step in a complex, decade-long battle over the fate of the building, which has become a symbol of broader struggles over gentrification.

Here's some history of the school, via the East Village Community Coalition Web site:

During the summer of 1911 P.S. 64 became the first Public School in the City to offer free open-air professional theater to the public. One of the reasons the school was chosen to premiere the series is because it was the first school in the city to have electric lights in its yard. Julius Hopp, director of the Theatre Centre For Schools tried unsuccessfully to stage The Merchant of Venice on the raised courtyard facing 10th street. The noise from the trolleys rumbling down 10th street made the performance inaudible but the thousands of people gathered across the street, packed onto the courtyard and peering from the tenement windows were treated to an impromptu rendition of Kipling's Gunga Din, recited by Sydney Greenstreet, one of the actors in the production. (Greenstreet became famous as the "fat man" in The Maltese Falcon and Casablanca.) Undaunted, Hopp regrouped and presented the play two days later in the school auditorium. The thrilled audience got a chance to see the young Greenstreet and Warner Oland (later to play Charlie Chan) in Shakespeare's grand Comedy. Needless to say, the harsh stereotypical imagery of the play was not lost on the neighborhood's burgeoning Jewish community.

In the 1920's P.S. 64 was a required stop for politicians campaigning in New York City. Governor Alfred E. Smith, Mayor Jimmy Walker, and Franklin Delano Roosevelt all recognized how important it was to make time to speak in the school's auditorium. Walker railed against his opponent, then Mayor Hylan, Governor Smith confronted the Hearst News Empire, and Roosevelt assessed his strength with Jewish voters by the neighborhood turnout for his speech at P.S. 64.

(Photo: Marilynn K. Yee/The New York Times)

Shit that you can't make up: Mental hospital edition

Norman Mailer, Allen Ginsberg, Charlie Parker, Sid Vicious and Edie Sedgwick have been among the many who have had a mental vacation at Bellevue. It's more than a nuthouse, of course: It's the oldest public hospital in the United States. Oh, well, now the original Bellevue building at First Avenue and 30th Street might become a fucking hotel. (New York magazine)

Get it while you can: Boss Hog is back

Somewhere in the deep recesses of the EV Grieve "drafts" folder, I had a post in the works titled "Whatever happened to...Boss Hog." They were my favorite local band for years...part of a post-scum rock scene on the LES that included the likes of Unsane, Railroad Jerk, Cop Shoot Cop and the Honeymoon Killers, among others.

Well, I won't babble on about Boss Hog's biographical nuts and bolts and the seismic demographic shifts that have eroded the Orchard/Ludlow corridor. Maybe another day. Anyway, after a handful of releases spanning 1989-2000...the band just seemingly disappeared after 2001. Mainstays Jon Spencer and Cristina Martinez (husband and wife) had a son...and Spencer continued on with The Blues Explosion and Heavy Trash. I'd see the two around once in awhile, in Union Square or in store. But I'm not the "hey, I'm a big fan, what the fuck you guys doing now?" type person.

Today, Brooklyn Vegan drops a report that allowed me to delete my "Whatever happened to..." post. Boss Hog will be getting back together to play a few gigs next month.

BOSS HOG - 2008 TOUR DATES
Dec 3rd - Maxwell's, Hoboken, NJ
DEC 5th - ATP Nightmare Before Christmas MINEHEAD, UK
DEC 8th - The Luminaire LONDON, UK
DEC 17th - The Bowery Ballroom NEW YORK, NY ??

If you want to know more about Spencer and the pre-Boss Hog days of Pussy Galore, Alex has you covered.

Meanwhile...from the archives....


The video for "Hustler" from the "Girl +" EP:



From CBGB in 1993:



An AmRep ad for their Big Action Box single:

Happening by the Holland

Since Jeremiah broke the news on Nov. 4 that the Holland may be gone for good, there has been plenty of chitchat among my circle of friends about the bar. Meanwhile, Brooks paid a visit to the getting-gutted bar and passed along some possibly good news that the Holland may reopen in the new year. By pure randomness, I happened to be by the ass-end of Port Authority Friday after work. I walked by the Holland on Ninth Avenue. It wasn't pretty.





Three workers were carrying crap out of the Holland basement and tossing it into the dumpster. Nothing was left inside the space where the bar was. And the workers didn't seem all that pleased that I was nosing around.

I kind of like Bass Plucked Lute for a restaurant name

One of the many vacant storefronts along East Ninth Street between Avenue A and First Avenue will soon be a Moroccan restaurant. (OK, we're assuming Moroccan given that Sintir is "a three stringed skin-covered bass plucked lute used by the Gnawa people of Morocco.")

Noted

On the side of the Sheen Brothers bodega on 10th Street and Avenue B. This was not here the other day. The graffiti, not the bodega.

BOA unveils new plan to combat rising consumer debt

At 110 Third Ave.

As long as it's not so fancy pants that a taco will cost $5

At San Loco on Avenue A.

Looking at the South Bronx 1982-1984

The Museum of the City of New York has a new exhibition of interest.

Broken Glass: Photographs of the South Bronx by Ray Mortenson
Nov. 14 through March 9

Made between 1982 and 1984, the photographs in Broken Glass: Photographs of the South Bronx by Ray Mortenson focus on the burned out, abandoned, and razed structures of entire city blocks in the South Bronx, documenting the aftermath of a widespread urban economic crisis that plagued the United States in the 1970s.

Now and then at the Rainbow Room

The Rainbow Room, where the likes of Ella Fitzgerald and Count Basie entertained well-dressed crowds on the 65th floor of 30 Rockefeller Plaza, is now in its 75th year of operations. The Post made note of what the United States was like when it opened:

When the Rainbow Room first struck up the band in 1934, the Great Depression was in full swing. Bank closings and home foreclosures were rampant and unemployment rates soared. The Giants had won the NFL championship by spoiling a foe’s otherwise perfect season. A Harvard-educated lawyer from the Democratic party had recently wrestled the presidency from the Republican incumbent with a message of hope — and, in doing so, secured House and Senate majorities. And, by no coincidence, strong yet fancy cocktails were all the rage.

Sound familiar?

The club, which is now only open two weekends a month, is awaiting word to see if they will get landmark status from the city.

Not ready for any of this

The Holiday Market at Union Square was being set up yesterday...

Duane Reade had their shit out in October.



Food Emporium had their stuff up the day after Halloween.




The holiday lights went up on 10th Street sometime this past week.



And 57th and Fifth?

I'm still trying to enjoy my Labor Day.

Last call for the P & G

Brooks has the bad/sad news that the P & G Cafe will close at the end of the year. There's talk of another P & G at another location some day.

Previously on EV Grieve:
The P & G Cafe: An appreciation

Related:
Alex has some more NYC-related videos...including one from Depeche Mode that features the P & G.

Five rather random photos taken around the vicinity of Penn Station last night

Important notice: We spent all your money

Thought that's what it said for a minute.

Clown rings opening bell yesterday; Post suitably outraged

The Post even devoted an editorial to the subject.

"Poison"

The Times checks in today with a piece on the East Village/LES rezoning battle. “I implore you to see the plan for what it is — poison,” said Malcolm Lam, who spoke on behalf of the Coalition to Protect Chinatown and the Lower East Side.

Anyone have a cigarette? Cigarette?

Johnny Thunders, 1978.

Condo bender

Where oh where to begin. From the Times today:

Here’s one mistake that stressed out financial workers may want to avoid right now: Don’t get so drunk over the bear market that you dial up your broker and buy a luxury Manhattan condo on a boozy whim.

But Kipton Davis, a Prudential Douglas Elliman broker from Virginia, thinks a little bourbon could be good for sales.

Just as a few drinks may coax timid traders onto a dance floor, it could help them muster the courage to buy multimillion-dollar apartments.

That’s why on Wednesday night, Ms. Davis lured a half-dozen bankers, traders and friends on a condo tour of four TriBeCa buildings by offering wine and whiskey at every stop.

“Alcohol brings everyone together,” said Ms. Davis, after showing the group a $9.9 million penthouse at 16 Warren Street with an eight-seat hot tub. As the crowd debated whether they valued the hot tub over the layout of the $2.25 million unit downstairs, they sipped Chardonnay and a Chinon.

But they did not deliberate for long. There was tippling to be done. The pack headed to a $3.3 million bachelor loft at 132 Duane Street, where they were greeted by another Elliman broker, Francine Hunter McGivern, and a small spread.

“Have some food. Don’t be shy,” Ms. McGivern said.

They helped themselves to chicken satay and samosas and washed the snacks down with Sancerre wine, and Lagavulin ($77 a bottle) and Talisker ($60 a bottle) whiskeys. They sipped and listened while Ms. McGivern stressed that her client, a banker, did not need to sell. He will hold out for a buyer willing to pay for his meticulous renovation featuring Miele fixtures and wood floors imported from Austria. The crowd seemed pleased.

“The thing I dig is the bar across from the powder room,” said Patrick Nichols. Twenty-seven and newly married, Mr. Nichols, a trader with Jane Street Capital, scribbled in a leather-bound notebook and snapped photos. He is looking to spend $2 million to $3 million on a two- or three-bedroom apartment. He said he did not know many people hurt by the slowdown, and he was not worried about losing his job.