Go to Ray's Candy Store

Bob Arihood has written about the plight of Ray at Ray's Candy Store, which has been at 113 Avenue A for 35 years. Now Scoopy has more details in his column (last item) in this week's issue of The Villager. Writes Scoopy:

Friends of Ray Alvarez are really getting concerned about his situation. Alvarez has operated his Ray’s Candy Store, on Avenue A at Seventh St., for years, and everyone just assumed he’d saved up a nice nest egg. But it turns out, he’s broke. He needs new glasses and has a bad hernia you don’t want to hear the details of, and his diet is mainly leftover potatoes that he doesn’t make into Belgian fries and maybe some soft ice cream.

Anyway, it's a complicated situation. So, stop by. Or at least visit the MySpace page that Eden Brower created for him. As his bio reads there:

Ray is a lower east side icon who is loved by many...He makes the best belgian fries around and will serve you with love and a smile...Home to old timer regulars, drunks, tourists, wingnuts, political activists and hipsters, Ray's is a unique piece of old new york in a rapidly gentrifying neighborhood.. Please come to Ray's and support this beloved treasure!!

One opinion (not mine) on the "Top 10 New York Bar Names"

Meet Now Live's Nightlife and Bar Guide, which gave us the "Top Ten Dirtiest Bars in New York," has another listicle. Presented here in its entirety without comment. It's up to you to decide if they were trying to be funny. Or offensive. Or...

Funny, Stupid, Sexual, Weird, whatever…these are the top 10 New York bars with the best names. Some I’ve been to, some I refused to go to…if you’re at one of these bars, hit “broadcast now” from the bar’s mobile MNL page to let us know!

Here are the top ten great bar names of New York:

1. Wogies - West Village - anyone have any clue where this came from?

2. Murphy & Gonzalez - West Village - So an Irishman and a Mexican walk into a bar…

3. 1 2 3 Burger Shot Beer - Midtown West - It’s like calling your bar “$3 Drafts”

4. Kettle of Fish - West Village - wtf?

3. Arlene’s Grocery - Lower East Side - No Arlene and definitely no groceries going on in this place.

4. No Idea - Flatiron - exactly, no idea.

5. Otto’s Shrunken Head - East Village - uhhmmm….yyyyyeah.

6. Chumley’s Bar - West Village - Sounds like something you do after a long night of boozing or could be one of those sex postions…”I gave some girl the sickest Chumley last night!”

7. Galway Hooker - Garment District - So many guys walk into this place with a handfull of cash and completely pissed off.

8. Burp Castle - East Village - Amazingly this place is actually a nice place to bring a date.

9. The Redhead - East Village - If you go downstairs to the basement, it too is also red.

10. I’m Gonna Kill You Tavern & Grille - OK, I made this one up.

Honorable Mention:

Happy Ending - Chinatown - because a happy ending is NOT what you get here

Slaughtered Lamb - Greenwich Village - just a gross name

Nowhere - East Village - cause thats exactly where you tell people you were last night if you went here last night

Ding-Dong Lounge - Upper West Side - AKA “Penis Tavern”

Walking by the Lululemon Athletica shop

I'm always curious when I see storefronts being renovated, like the one at 156 Fifth Avenue at 20th Street. After quite a bit of work, it turned out to be a Lululemon Athletica shop, a place that sells yoga-inspired women's athletic wear. The store opened on Black Friday, Nov. 28. Fine. So I was a little startled when I walked by the store again this week...to see that's it's closing...and moving to a new Union Square location, which opens today. Dumb question, but why would you spend all the money to renovate a space only to close and move two months later...?

Pussy Galore in Times Square

Recent Times Square in the 1970s/1980s/1990s posts by Alex at Flaming Pablum and Ken at Greenwich Village Daily Photo prompted me to dig out one of my favorite records, Pussy Galore's "Corpse Love." The CD sleeve includes each of the five band members standing in front of an appropriate marquee on 42nd Street. Only included the shots of Messrs. Hagerty and Spencer here...

New wave!

An ad from Wednesday's Post.



The new wave of markerting...?

And previously.

Landmark yes, condos no

The Villager this week reports that: The Community Board 3 Landmarks Committee decided last week to continue efforts to have the Russian Orthodox Cathedral in the East Village designated as a city landmark and to help locate funding for the financially troubled church.

The church, built in 1891, is located at 59 E.Second St. And those plans to add eight residential stories to its current 60-foot height have been squashed.

Save the date/Reminder

For more information, head over to Kirby's at Colonnade Row. And you can thank him for helping put this together.

For further reading:
The Vanishing City (Jeremiah's Vanishing NY)

The future of Union Square?

Esquared notes that Union Square could become a retail ghost town. Indeed. I see a return to the days when roller-skate-wearing gangs decked out in menacing rugby shirts and denim overalls -- fresh from looting an Old Navy, perhaps? -- wreak havoc in and around Union Square. Just like the old days.



Yeah, laugh now.

Credible-enough sources: The Holland Bar is reopening (soon, probably, too)

Walked by the now-closed Holland Bar on Ninth Avenue yesterday. Where did we leave off? Quick back-story: Jeremiah reported in November (on Election Day!) that the Holland was closing, possibly for good. Then came some follow-up news from Brooks at Lost City that the place was just getting a facelift...I happened by the place myself Nov. 14 and found the place suspiciously gutted.

So! Yesterday!



There is some activity going on inside...Not much to see. Some sawhorses. A few ladders. Power tools. A space heater. No furniture. No bar. Nothing. But!



The sign is still on the wall. And! The fellow at East West Grocery right next door emphatically told me the Hollard was reopening -- "in two weeks." Really? "Yes, it is reopening." After that, I stood out front and waited for the lone construction worker inside to emerge from behind the half-closed gate. The conversation went something like this:

Is the bar reopening?

"Yes."

Do you know when it will reopen?

"No."

Maybe in two weeks?

[Nervous laughter] "I don't know."

Looks like you still have a lot of work to do.

[Nervous laughter]

In any event, seems like a good sign that the, uh, Bar sign is still outside...and the neon Holland is still inside. Shall we all go back in two weeks?

Here's a little taste of the old Holland and Ernie the bartender from the Times, circa August 1987:

[I]nside the Holland Bar, they find small legends hanging like the smoke in the stale blue air.

Ronnie loved his unattainable Laura so much that he played "Tell Laura I Love Her" time after time after time -- $15 worth a night -- until, by resounding vote of the paying customers, the tune was banned from the jukebox forever.

Big Pete, 6 foot 6 inches and 400 pounds, downed 72 White Castles, on Aug. 24, 1983, according to a faded sign on the wall.

Larry the meatman used to set up shop and sell steaks at the bar until he forgot to tip Ernie once too often.

Ernie once talked a drag queen into dressing up as a clown and dancing on the street. It's not clear whether it was to attract business or drive it away.

Assembled on the bar stools the other day were a loquacious blond hooker; a cadre of postal workers from the post office across the street, a radio executive in a conservative suit; a Panamanian immigrant nursing his 15th cerveza, and Mario celebrating his release from jail with crisp white wine.

There was also a 53-year-old man who shoplifts to order -- just tell him what you need and get a 50 percent discount, "Bras, panties, whatever you want."

A few stools down, a tourist from Honolulu was back for his third day. "I just sort of stumbled in," he said.

[Holland Bar sign photo via Shanna Ravindra, New York magazine]

Oh, España en Llamas, I didn't get to say goodbye

On my way back from the Holland, I turned left on 36th Street off Ninth Avenue. I guess I didn't realize this place had closed. Hadn't been inside España en Llamas in a few years. I usually stuck with the Holland or the Bellevue in these parts. Too bad. I liked this place. Last time I was there, a drunken fellow tried to pick a fight with me for no reason. A few beers later, he had his arm around me. Friends, for no reason.

New York Press did a proper piece on the place back in May 2006. (No byline on it -- Joshua Bernstein's work? Updated: Yes, Josh wrote this...had confirmation.) This is about as accurate as you can be in describing the place:

At the western end, there's a signless storefront with a door falling off its hinge. It's beyond nondescript, a spot that could house a numbers hall or an ersatz squat. The storefront's smudged window, though, contains the key clue: a neon Budweiser sign nearly as old as neon.

“That's the type of bar where you can disappear,” a stranger said one day, motioning to the sign.

At the time, my roommate was ambling behind said gentleman. Words piqued ears, and I was later relayed the story.

“No one will ever find you,” he said. “It's like falling off the face of the earth.”

And:

In the darkened rear room, which is stocked with mountains of Budweiser cases, construction workers gather 'round a video-poker machine. A middle-aged couple sits beside them, tongue-kissing. Are they adulterers? Who knows. Who will find out?

Hmm. Damn. Hate to see places like this go. Oh, it did seem as if something was happening inside, like some construction, though I didn't spot any permits. Never struck me as the place that would close for renovations, though.

There's likely a perfectly good reason why someone threw away a straw bale

Avenue B at Third Street.

Instant Bowery

From the Times. Check out Concrete Jumble: Instant Bowery, which is the third episode in Gary Leib's series of animations about the history of New York City.

Behind the scenes: The Panic in Needle Park

The Panic in Needle Park gets a run at the Film Forum starting Jan. 30. This week's Time Out talks with a few members of the cast and crew about the making of the 1971 smack classic. (No Al Pacino, though. Busy making 89 Minutes?)

Here's the trailer for the film:

The Chocolate Bar heads back to the West Village...which means the House of Cards & Curiosities is closing

The Observer follows up on my post that The Chocolate Bar shut down its East Seventh Street location rather suddenly last week. They spoke with owner Alison Nelson.

“More of our customers came to the Bendel’s location for Christmas than went to the East Village,” she said. “And I think a lot of it is because it’s freezing cold outside and nobody wants to walk however many blocks from the trains or take two buses where it’s easier to hop off the F at Sixth Avenue and — boom! — you’re right inside Henri Bendel.” [EV Grieve editor's note: Oh, the temptation to make a comment about this...]
Yet, her bittersweet saga also took a rather tasty twist.
“When we last saw each other in April, I was freaking out because I couldn’t find rent in the West Village for anything that was affordable,” said Ms. Nelson, who reluctantly shuttered her original Chocolate Bar location at 48 Eighth Avenue last spring after finding larger, less expensive digs across town. “And the weirdest thing happened. …”
Cue international economic crisis!
Eight months after abandoning her beloved but overpriced West Village, Ms. Nelson is now returning to the very same street—“never mind the same neighborhood!” she said. “Literally, diagonally across the street from where it all started and personally where I feel Chocolate Bar belongs … The West Village, for me, is home.”
Ms. Nelson has signed a new lease at 23 Eighth Avenue, taking over the current House of Cards & Curiosities, whose longtime operator is planning to retire.

Oh, so I guess this mans that nice little mom-and-pop shop House of Cards & Curiosities is closing.



[Image via Yelp]