Day 4: The Blarney Stone is still closed

Noted

Page Six has a photo feature today of everyone's favorite, SJP....for reasons unknown she'll be featured in the March Harper's Bazaar....I'll let you read the rest...



... particularly that part about how Carrie Bradshaw would handle this recession....

The bad old days of the 1980s are back (but maybe not what you're thinking)

From today's Wall Street Journal:

At law firm Bickel & Brewer, even the mailroom clerks wear suits and ties. Until recently, that might have been considered extreme. But now, power dressing is coming back in style, and the old-school law firm has a new relevance.

As law-firm layoffs mount, fear of unemployment appears to be speeding up the resurgence of power clothes, even among the youngest recruits. Legal interns have begun flouting business-casual dress codes and wearing suits instead, says Gretchen Neels, a Boston communications consultant who works with law firms and graduate schools. "In our economic times, you really want to have your game on. You can't be too formal," she says.

Power clothes are selling well at menswear retailer Paul Fredrick. Those white-collared, colored dress shirts that Gordon Gekko favored in the 1987 movie "Wall Street" have been big sellers in recent months, says Dean White, executive vice president of merchandise. So are yellow power ties, another 1980s dress-for-success accessory.

Whatever...I just hope those mobile phones come back in style...I still use mine. The looks I get!

Remembering 172 Stanton St.

Jan. 24 marked the 11th anniversary of an ugly day in LES history. On that cold, drizzly day in 1998, the lower portion of the rear wall of the building at 172 Stanton St. gave way at 8:58 a.m., as the Times reported. According to the Buildings Department, rainwater apparently got into the wall, which was weakened by years of deterioration, and loosened the bricks and mortar.

Some 25 residents were evacuated as a safety measure. City officials told them they could return to collect their things. As the Times tells it:

But in their dash for safety, many residents of the partially collapsed building left with only their clothes, leaving behind pets, family heirlooms and other valuables. The collapse occurred while many residents were still asleep.

The building was later demolished, angering the tenants who said they had been given no chance to rescue pets or belongings.

Mrs. Grieve and I lived across the street from the building at the time. We watched the horror show unfold. We watched as city officials quickly decided to raze the building, leaving the desperate residents begging officials to allow them a moment to retrieve some personal belongings...their pets...wedding bands...cherished family photos...

Residents who tried to get a court injunction allowing them to remove pets and belongings from the building before it was demolished at about 8:30 P.M. accused city officials of speeding up the demolition when they were informed of their intentions.

"I said, 'Give me half an hour,'" said Marcelino Garcia, a resident who said that he had spoken to an official from the Mayor's Office of Emergency Management. When people outside the building started chanting, demanding that it be saved, Mr. Garcia said, the official got on a cellular phone, "and boom, that was it."

Indeed. Although the building looked fine, the official line was that it was extremely unstable. We watched from our rooftop across the street when the century-old tenement building came down. The five-stories were split open. Bedrooms were quickly exposed. We could see pictures on the wall. An unmade bed. A bureau of clothing. We had our cameras, but were too sick to actually take any photos.

One resident, Marc Friedlander, 35, a video artist, said he had nearly $20,000 worth of cameras and other video equipment in his apartment, as well as the entire collection of tapes of the downtown art scene he has documented over the last 15 years.

"It's priceless what I am losing in there," he said.

Mr. Garcia, who was able to grab his dog, a bichon frise, on his way out, said his canary flew away during the pandemonium. His wife, Milagros, left her wedding ring.

For most of the afternoon, Roberto Carreara, 66, and another resident, Stanley Kleinkopf, stood near the police yellow tape and pleaded to be allowed to rescue their cats.

"Please, please," Mr. Carreara begged an officer repeatedly about retrieving his cat. "He's all I got."

The cat, Honey, was never seen again. Kleinkopf and his wife Ann had lived in that building since 1958. They lost everything. As did most residents. A lifetime gone. It took 12 hours to bring down the building, an absurdly long time for something deemed so unstable, such a threat to life and limb.

Arguably the worst part of the ordeal as a witness came the following day, when the residents -- some 25 in total -- were brought back from the Westway Motor Inn near LaGuardia where the Red Cross placed them. A waterlogged pile of household items, including Friedlander's guitar, now with a broken neck, were lying on the sidewalk. The residents, mostly still in their clothes from the day before, glumly sorted through the pathetic mound. The rest of the building and its contents were hauled off by a private demolition company hired by the city.

In a follow-up article in the Times on May 10, 1998, "Only 3 of the 25 have found new homes; half remain in shelters and single-room-occupancy hotels. The others depend on the waning sympathies of friends or relatives."

There are theories that "the landlord and the city jumped at an excuse to remove the rent-stabilised tenants from the building," according to a post on RalphBorland.net and a subsequent article published at tenant.net.

The lot stayed empty as long as I can recall.


[Via RalphBorland.net]

We moved several blocks away in subsequent years...I think of Jan. 24 every time I pass by the corner of Clinton and Stanton. Today, the million-dollar condo on that corner is nearly ready for occupancy.

Tribe has closed; owner wants "a classier place"

Yesterday afternoon a tipster passed along news that Tribe, the decade-old bar on the corner of St. Mark's Place and First Avenue, had closed. Indeed, a walk by the place last night confirmed this.




According to the Real Deal:

Tribe's final day was last Thursday, said owner Matt Wagman, senior partner at Riteon, a partnership that operates four other bars in Manhattan. While Tribe drew loyal crowds and "always turned in really nice numbers," the bar closed after negotiations failed with landlord Tara Allmen, who had asked for a "100 percent increase" in rent when Tribe's 10-year lease expired December 31, Wagman said.

Allmen, a physician, inherited the building from her mother, Renée Allmen, along with several other East Village properties, and recently completed renovating the four residential spaces in the building. She called Tribe "an eyesore."

"I want a classier place," she said, adding that Tribe "was not going to enhance the aesthetic of the building."

Previously on EV Grieve:
I'm not waiting on a lady...say, what the hell is Mick wearing anyway?

"Back then this whole area was just people who were into art and you know…"

Meanwhile, more stores are closing in the EV

In recent days I started taking photos of all the stores in the EV that had sale signs in the window. It just seemed as if every store was offering huge savings. Given the number of advertised reductions, it occurred to me that it would be easier to take photos of shops that weren't having sales. There weren't many.

Meanwhile, the carnage continues. The Tibetan specialty shop Lhasa Boutique on Avenue B near Fourth Street is going.



This makes 22 empty storefronts now on Avenue B. (There were 23, but Coyi Cafe opened a few weeks back.)

Meanwhile, on Ninth Street between Second Avenue and First Avenue...

Australian Homemade is back open

As of yesterday. Following a short closure for "construction."

The fools! Don't they know who they're dealing with?

The organizers of the Red Bull Snowscrapers event have pumped out about 1,550 cubic yards of manmade snow for the 90-foot tall ramp. Uh-oh. Are they crazy? Hope they have good security!



Anyway, it's today and free and stuff.

Grub Street reports: The Holland is open

This is the kind of booze news that we can use.

Update: City Room pays a visit.


Previous Holland coverage on EV Grieve.

Day 3: The Blarney Stone is still closed

EV Grieve Etc.: Mourning edition

New York Dolls made their uptown debut 36 years ago (This Ain't the Summer of Love, via Stupefaction)

Sucking Icicles (East of Bowery)

Ken has been checking out the Brooklyn Navy Yards (Greenwich Village Daily Photo)

Kirby has more on Great Jones Street (Colonnade Row)

Not cool: Pepsi replaces the Swayzzzzzzzze (BoweryBoogie)

Don't fuck with Central Park (Flaming Pablum)

More vanishing storefronts (Jeremiah's Vanishing NY)

Rotten makes butter better (Hunterer-Gatherer)

The evilest empire: A Live Nation and TicketMaster merger? (Brooklyn Vegan)

Oscar Wilde bookstore closing (Runnin' Scared)

From a New York Times editorial: Lawrence Ferlinghetti once wrote that Coney Island is “where I first fell in love with unreality.” Today, a desolate reality has taken hold at the legendary amusement park. As rides close, bulldozers uproot land that once held delightfully sinister sideshows. The few rides left barely lure neighborhood children and nostalgic tourists.

Reason No. 3,587 why local TV news sucks: Sue Simmons' annual groundhog impression (YouTube)

Ugh: Another dive in danger

Grub Street has the awful news on a Brooklyn classic:

One of the city’s truly gritty watering holes, the Navy Yard Cocktail Lounge, may not have long for this world.

As Daniel Maurer notes, the bar’s building (along with three others) is for sale for $3 million.


[Photo by Daniel Maurer via New York]

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...

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...