Spanky and our gang?

Three teens, maybe 15 or 16, were walking along Tompkins Square Park.

Teen 1: "I'm not gonna get married 'till I'm 34."

Teen 2: "I'm going to wait until I'm 29."

Teen 3: "I'm just going to keep masterbating."

A sign that I like

On Third Avenue in the 20s.

"The high cost of living has hit the Bowery"

From the caption that accompanied this archival AP photo:

A prospective customer grumbles under his breath at the prices scribbled on the window of this Bowery restaurant on New York's Lower East Side, Sept. 26, 1947. The high cost of living has hit the Bowery like every other place and it's tough on the residents. One of the biggest selling items is soup and coffee, for 10 cents. It used to be a Nickel. A room with a partition and an electric light is up from 30 cents to 40 cents. The dormitories are 35 cents up from 20.

[AP Photo/Ed Ford]

Steamed hot dogs?

Near the New York Stock Exchange.

Old and broken and new and shiny on the Bowery

One shit playoff game...and we quickly forget

On Park Avenue South.

Trash treasures

Someone tossed a huge box of magazines out on the curb the other day. On top, the June 2001 issue of GQ featuring Heath Ledger on the cover.



Could have been easy money for someone...the issue is going for a starting price of $14.99 on eBay...

EV Grieve Etc.: Mourning edition

The formula that killed Wall Street (Wired)

Remembering Candy Darling (The New York Times)

A record shop will stay in the Etherea space (Stupefaction)

Western Union at the Ludlow (BoweryBoogie)

Washington Square Park Blog turns one tomorrow! (Washington Square Park)

The story behind the Two Boots artwork (Jeremiah's Vanishing NY)

More economic malaise street stickers (Slap you in Public)

The way we ate then (Hunter-Gatherer)

Plays for 37 cents each (East Village Podcasts)

Hmmm...the Yonah Shimmel Knish Bakery (Greenwich Village Daily Photo)

While Lucy is on holiday (temporarily, we hope!) revisit some of her past with this short feature from 2004 in the Voice.

"Sophie's...remains a good place to stop time"

I finally watched the "Disappearing Manhattan" episode of "No Reservations" (this after blabbering away about it the last three months!). It debuted Monday night, and will air several more times. Grub Street yesterday provided a nice synopsis of what the episode covered.

In particular, I was interested in the last segment, in which Anthony Bourdain shoots the shit with Nick Tosches at Sophie's. It was all of about three minutes (and the shoot at Sophie's took nearly three hours, I was told).

Here's most of what transpired at Sophie's....

Signs of the times: Mass for employment

On the fourth Wednesday of each month (such as today!), the Church of the Most Holy Redeemer on East Third Street near Avenue A has the following special service...

Fun with dialogue balloons

Someone placed dialogue balloon stickers on ads around the neighborhood...readymade for some good old-fashioned defacing!



So far...

Who wants to go for a ride in the cellulite reduction treatment car?

On Spring and Mulberry. And it just fits by a hair in that parking spot.

Ice capades at Cooper Square Hotel

The last, oh, three or four times that I've walked by this service entrance to the Cooper Square Hotel...there are bags of ice just sitting there...melting.

When an enormous town house just won't do

From the Times today:

Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg’s town house at 17 East 79th Street is the epitome of Upper East Side elegance: five stories of flawless Beaux-Arts limestone with 7,500 square feet of exquisite living space, all within steps of Central Park.

But for the mayor, it seems, the house has been a bit cramped.

Over the past two decades, in transactions that have gone all but unnoticed, Mr. Bloomberg has been buying up space in the building next door, knocking down walls and combining two entire floors along the way. He now owns four of the six apartments at 19 East 79th Street, a white 1880 neo-Grec co-op town house.