EV Grieve

Wednesday, February 4, 2009

The recession reaches Madison Avenue

Last Nov. 6, I did a post after walking on Madison Avenue in the 70s and 60s where all the really nice shops are.

Flashback!

And you know we didn't see one person shopping in any of these stores. Seriously. Post-election hangover perhaps? Or maybe the richies just don't shop in a light rain on weekday afternoons? Or maybe the economy is really fucked. Anyway, every store was the same: A handful of well-dressed employees standing around looking expectantly out the store windows.

So I wasn't surprised to read this in the Times today:

New York’s most elegant shopping corridor, the Gold Coast of Madison Avenue, from 57th Street to 72nd Street, is pockmarked with vacancies as retailers flee sky-high rents. More than two dozen retail spaces are on the market and are either empty now or about to be. Windows that once showcased hand-tooled leather suitcases are now plastered with for-rent signs.

“This is as bad as I’ve ever seen it,” said Alan Victor, a broker who has worked the street for more than four decades and who is an executive vice president of the Lansco Corporation.

Why people move away

I've noticed a few more people than usual moving from the neighborhood. (Perhaps there's a reason for so many more men with vans signs.) Given the drop in some rentals, maybe these people are just moving a few blocks away to a building with better deals. Or maybe they lost everything and have to go bunk with a relative. Or maybe they came here during the heady days of, say, 2005 and figured to become the next Carrie Bradshaw. (Or at least have the chance to sit on her stoop!) I wish I could go up to these people and conduct exit interviews. Why are you moving? What will you miss about the neighborhood? What are you glad to be leaving behind? I'm always curious about this.

Luckily, I came across a blog written by a young professional living on the LES. After one year here, she is moving to another undisclosed neighborhood. Almost in answer to my questions, she provided a list of things she will miss and not miss about her apartment and the LES. Among the items:

Things I will miss:
--The gym. I hope I can still force myself to go to the gym when it isn’t in my building!
--My stainless steel stove
--Dry cleaning in the building
--The statue of Vladimir Lenin on top of the Red Square building. I can see him from my bed so I wake up to him with his right arm in the air every single morning.

Things I will not miss:
--The girls who scream, “Where’s my boyfriend!?” at 4 a.m. while leaving the Lower East Side bars on any given day
--The symphony of honking on Houston Street that forces me to sleep with earplugs
--The fresh vomit that I sometimes step over while leaving for [work] on any given day
--The smell of pickles from Katz Deli that I am forced to inhale when walking home every day
--The fact that there is not a close enough Starbucks
--The mural of Kiss on the brick wall on the bar across from my apartment

I guess that says it all.

This looks perfectly safe!

On Stanton Street between Clinton and Suffolk. This promises to be even more of a hazard with the fresh snowfall...

Closed, no cigars

Dunno if this is one for Jeremiah's Signs of the Yunnipocalypse...but Carolina's Cigars on Nassau Street in the Financial District has closed....

Wasn't exactly a hotspot for fat cats, though telling nonetheless...

Something about the East Village of Des Moines seems strangely familar

First, to be honest, I was unaware there was an East Village in Des Moines, Iowa.

Anyway, this article from yesterday's Des Moines Register shows that we have something in common with their East Village:

Land in the East Village that currently houses a 1930s-era terra cotta gas station will be redeveloped into a paved parking lot next month.

Namely, stupid, rampant development...

And prices are being slashed

Spotted on Avenue B at Eighth Street. Dunno if the fliers were hung with the savings...or a passerby decided to reduce the price...

Tuesday, February 3, 2009

EV Grieve Etc.: Mourning edition

Key Food killer gets 20-to-life sentence (Daily News)

An interview with Philip Glass, who has lived in the East Village for 40 years (Gothamist)

Thirty years ago yesterday: Sid Vicious dies in NYC (Hunter-Gatherer)

New York in legos (New York Times)

Bespoke Chocolates to open tomorrow in Extra Place? (Grub Street)

A forlorn sight at the Cheyenne (Jeremiah's Vanishing NY)

More art galleries are closing (Bloomberg)

NYC loses another character: RIP Joe Ades (Esquared)

Cheeky!: "In the butt" stickers now terrorizing defenseless signs and other inanimate objects in NYC (Urban Pranksters, In the Butt)

Update on the Blarney Stone: Still closed

Following up on my earlier post on the Blarney Stone on Fulton Street. Uh-oh — it's still closed as of around noon today. Not a good sign. This is a good lunch space...and a better drinking spot. OK, and a good lunch spot to drink in. Anyway, it's one of the few bars remaining in the Financial District worth frequenting...

Looks as if a sign was taped up on the gate....But five measly pieces of tape in this wind? The sign is likely in Brooklyn Heights by now. I walked around to the back entrance on Ann Street and looked inside. Nothing amiss. Everything seems to be where it usually is. The phone just rings...no outgoing message.

So I'm sure this is just a temporary thing...Right?

Still, given the changes sweeping down Fulton Street, nothing would surprise me...

Another Anne Frank tag

I did a post this past Friday on an Anne Frank tag that I saw on a building on West 35th Street between Ninth Avenue and Eighth Avenue. It was not a tag that I had ever seen before...ditto for The Graffiti Friend of EV Grieve (GFEVG)...

Well, GFEVG noticed an Anne Frank tag in Nathan Kensinger's "Abandoned Brooklyn" exhibit from last month. Here's Nathan's photo:

Nathan told me in an e-mail: "It's a piece I included ... because it was such a strange find -- down at the dead end of a street in Sunset Park, surrounded by razor wire, in front of an abandoned Marine Terminal."

From tiki to minimalistic Marfa

It looks as if the former Waikiki Wally's space on Second Street is ready for action...It's Marfa, which is either taken from Dostoyevsky's "The Brothers Karamazov" or the town in Texas. Or, um, maybe it's just Marfa.

They have drink specials...

...and some food...(the sign says the full menu debuts Feb. 12...)

And why are these photos so blurry? It's as if I took them while jogging by or something. Anyway! It wasn't open when I walked by last night some time before 7. Pretty spare decor. Not one piece of Polynesian kitsch spotted. Not even a sliver of bamboo.