Jeremiah's Vanishing New York

Westsider Books

2009-11-20T08:00:00.001-05:00

On the Upper West Side, across from Zabar's, a bookstore has stood for more than three decades in one incarnation or another. Today it's Westsider Books and it has pretty much everything you could want in a bookstore.

Long and narrow, with high ceilings, Westsider is packed to the rafters with used books. The shelves are stacked 15 levels tall. Ask for a title you can't find and the knowledgeable shopkeeper will mount a tall rolling ladder to retrieve it.

view from the second level

Not only are the books packed high, they're also packed deep--two levels deep. If the book you're looking for doesn't come down from the heights, the shopkeeper will dig behind the first layer of volumes, pulling out handfuls at a time, to find your quarry in the depths.

It's the sort of place where you can lose yourself.

*Everyday Chatter

2009-11-19T11:30:00.005-05:00

Artist Jeanne-Claude, of Jeanne-Claude and Christo, has died. [NYT]

Colum McCann's novel of '70s NYC wins National Book Award. [NYT]

Alex's "Then & Now" revisits Soho. [FP]

On the Bowery with Metropolis, the Cooper Square Hotel "appears to be a cartoon illustrating the evils of overdevelopment." [EVG]

Drinking at the Nancy Whiskey bar. [COS]

Someone doesn't like the proliferation of Mr. Brainwash wheatpastes in Meatpacking:

HuffPo catches up on the McDonald's mod redesign in Chelsea. Says a Mickey D's spokeswoman, "People are using our restaurants differently today than they did five, 10, 20 years ago. People are multitasking, doing more on a given day... You want to be able to open your laptop, log on and get some work done while you're eating." [HP]

A quick look at the city's vanishing Hallmark stores. [ENY]

A virtual tugboat appears with a ghost sign on Berry St. [NYS]

Future of Books

2009-11-19T07:30:00.001-05:00

While we're on the topic of vanishing books, the Times has a piece about how consumers actually prefer reading "books" on their tiny smartphone screens, where they can do "everything." But it's the doing everything, combined with reading, that defeats the purpose of the book. Multitasking and distraction interfere with immersive reading. And spraying your smartphone with "Smell of Books" won't help.

As a blogger who spends too much time on the Web, I've noticed my own ability to focus on a book has become impaired. My brain is changing. And so is yours.

smartphones: 3, books: 1

The Autumn 2009 issue of the Wilson Quarterly looks at The Future of the Book. Among a series of articles, including one about "Your Brain on the Web," Christine Rosen, senior editor of The New Atlantis: Journal of Technology and Society, offers an excellent essay called "In the Beginning Was the Word." She writes about how abridgment, beginning with Reader's Digest and ending (so far) with blogs and tweets, has contributed to the demise of depth reading--and, ultimately, human empathy.

So, at risk of doing exactly what Rosen warns us against, I'm going to highlight a few quotes from the article, self-consciously abridging it in blog style. Since the article is not available online, I hope it will inspire you to seek out the magazine to read the whole thing.

"Our screen-intensive culture poses three challenges to traditional reading: distraction, consumerism, and attention-seeking behavior."

"We live in a world of continuous partial attention, one that prizes speed and brandishes the false promise of multi-tasking as a solution to our time management challenges. The image-driven world of the screen dominates our attention at the same time that it contributes to a kind of experience pollution that is challenging our ability to engage with the printed word."

"With the purchase of a traditional book, your consumer relationship ends when you walk out of the bookstore. With a wirelessly connected Kindle or iPhone, or your Wi-Fi-enabled computer, you exist in a perpetual state of potential consumerism."

"the transition from print reading to screen reading has increased our reliance on images and led to a form of 'social narcissism.'"

"[The] concern--that a culture that craves the image will eventually find itself mired in solipsism and satisfied by secondhand experiences--has been borne out. We follow the Twitter feeds of protesting Iranians and watch video of Michael Jackson's funeral and feel connected to the rest of the world, even though we lack context for that feeling and don't make much effort to achieve it beyond logging on. The screen offers us the illusion of participation, and this illusion is becoming our preference. As Boorstin observed, 'Every day seeing there and hearing there takes the place of being there.'"

You can read the rest of this essay by buying this issue through the Wilson Quarterly website, or finding it in your local indie bookshop.

*Everyday Chatter

2009-11-18T13:19:00.007-05:00

Victoria's Secret turns thongs into cupcakes--"Love at first bite!"--because vaginas are infantile and cute enough to bite?:

Alex's "Then and Now" covers Noho and Soho. [FP]

Grieve gets some graffiti love. [EVG]

Coop hotel revelers party under Homer Simpson's mug. [NMNL]

Lou Reed will be at NYPL 12/8. [Stupefaction]

92Y Tribeca brings you back to NYC in the 70s--in film. [BB]

Enter the Jazz Loft. [P&W]

WIRED opens a pop-up shop in "MePa"--complete with a Camaro:

On the Train

2009-11-18T07:00:00.000-05:00

Continuing the Book Week theme...

The other night, while riding the subway, I sat across from a man and a woman. They were strangers to me and to each other.

The man was double-fisting electronic gadgets--a Blackberry in one hand and an iPod in the other--tapping and scrolling without cease.

The woman was reading a paperback novel--Wuthering Heights.

I read Wuthering Heights in high school.

Looking at the woman, I had some idea of what was in her head: shadowy moors, a damp Yorkshire manor, the thwarted passions of Heathcliff and Cathy. I felt connected to her in our semi-shared experience.

I remembered being 16 years old and what that felt like, when I learned the word "misanthropist" from an elderly, blue-haired teacher who repeated, again and again, "Heathcliff is what you call a real misanthropist." Later, I discovered that "misanthropist" is not a word, and that the proper word is "misanthrope." But either way, the meaning is the same: A general dislike for humanity, often originating in feelings of social alienation.

Which is what I felt when I looked at the man with the gadgets. He fingered and clicked, flicked his eyes back and forth, up and down. I felt anxious when I looked at the man. I felt disconnected and alienated.

Overhead, among the subway advertisements, a poster displayed the first sentence from Kafka's Metamorphosis: "When Gregor Samsa woke up one morning from unsettling dreams, he found himself changed in his bed into a monstrous bug."

Kafka's novella has often been said to be about dehumanizing alienation in the face of modernity, in the onslaught of new technologies ushered in by the Industrial Revolution.

So there it was, that opening line, on a subway car in 2009, over a pair of strangers--one with her mind in a Victorian novel printed on paper, the other with his brain ping-ponging between the two poles of a postmodern technological couple.

Today, maybe we all feel a bit buggy.

*Everyday Chatter

2009-11-17T14:30:00.001-05:00

The score: Smartphones 3 (count 'em!), Books 1.

"The old, weird LES" still lives at the Mr. Lower East Side pageant. [Interview] & [Voice]

Party tonight at the Cooper Square Hotel to celebrate the unveiling of their "lame attempt to suddenly try to fit into the neighborhood." [EVG]

"Manners psychos" have begun to take action! Because "there are some rules that are the same no matter where you go, the one universal dictum being: stop being an asshole. If you don't know what this means, then you're probably doing it." [Gawker]

11/19: Closing party for Leee Black Childers' photographs of NYC "Drag Queens and Rent Boys," at Subdivision Art.

Meet Kenneth of Bedford. [NYS]

bookbook

2009-11-17T07:30:00.000-05:00

On a hectic day, just stepping into a bookshop, without even opening a single volume, will calm me. There's something about being in the presence of all that effort, all that possibility. I feel myself expand in the company of books. I can breathe there. To think of bookstores vanishing from the city makes me panicky. Which is why I'm so relieved that the latest of our vanishing indie shops has been reincarnated.

The Biography Bookshop has opened a new location, further east on Bleecker and under the new name "bookbook."

Bookbook is open for business and Independent Bookstore Week is a great time to make a visit to check them out. The new space is bigger than the last, bright and airy and filled with books. And, as in the old space, they've still got plenty of cheap remainders for sale on carts outside.

For a brief time, bookbook coexists with the old Biography. But not for long. In January the old location closes and turns into a Marc Jacobs store, which may or may not sell books.

*Everyday Chatter

2009-11-16T12:15:00.003-05:00

It's not just New York. The whole country is infected by the cupcake craze--and cuteness in general. Why? Because, says author Roland Kelts, "you are desperate to be known... And if you are desperate to be known, you need a strategy for being known, and a very good strategy is the old evolutionary one of being so cute that you need to be cared for." [VF]

More photo-tacular "Then & Now" from Alex in NYC. [FP]

Check out "Only in New York," photos of the city at MCNY. [Stupefaction]

Brian Berger interviews Jonathan Lethem on Chronic City. [WWIB]

Old and new side by side on W. 23rd, as the glassy "Modern23" abuts a classic:

City landlords have begun banning cigarette smoking in your own apartment--new tenants "must sign an agreement promising not to smoke inside their homes." [Gothamist]

Is Trump Soho going into foreclosure? [Curbed]

Blood on the streets of Alphabet City. [NMNL]

View the life cycle of Eldridge Street. [BB]

The EV Pizza Shop has closed due to high rent. [EVG]

Buy Some Books

2009-11-16T07:00:00.000-05:00

Yesterday began the first Independent Bookstore Week in New York City. There will be parties, free cookies, bagels, readings, and more at indie bookshops all over the city--check out the calendar here.

Just in time, stomping on the grave of The Book, Union Square's Barnes & Noble has removed a big section of books by the front doors and replaced them with this Nook display:

The "Nook" is B&N's answer to the Kindle, the other book killer on the market. What makes the Nook so special? You can get designer covers for it by Kate Spade, Jack Spade, and Jonathan Adler. This aspect makes the Nook especially appealing to people who shop on the New Bleecker Street, and to the Sex & the City crowd, who will no doubt clamor for the Kate Spade "Jane Street" cover in hot pink.

In the marketing photo below, the glasses seem to signify, "Hey, just because you like hot pink stuff doesn't mean you're a dummy." The embossed text on the cover reads, "She kept her nose in a book," while on the back it's "and her head in the clouds." Which says to me, "Hey, you're a bookish dreamer, Baby! You're still a little girl at heart and what's wrong with that? Now, let's download the latest digital offering from Candace Bushnell and get that faux-Golightly feeling all over."

Whether or not these are attractive covers is not the point. The point is: The Nook is not a book, and if you stick your nose into it, it won't feel much different than an iPhone or a laptop.

As Nooks, Kindles, and iPhones take over our attentions, we lose our ability to read in depth (you are scanning this screen right now), actual books will be relegated to props in trendy bar windows and condo lounges, while bookstores--including Barnes & Noble--will vanish. Our minds and our lives will be more impoverished for it.

Until that "Book-apocalypse" day comes, go visit an indie and buy their books--before it's too late. Here's IBNYC's extensive list of indie bookshops in the city. I have definitely not visited all of them. Those that I have visited, and covered here, you can find at the following links:

*Everyday Chatter

2009-11-13T10:00:00.001-05:00

Trend-seeking condo folks recently moved to the High Line fear the arrival of trend-making Artichoke Pizza: "You'll have every drunk going there at 3:30 a.m. and mayhem in the streets." [Curbed]

Sunday begins Indie Bookstore Week NYC--go buy some books!

But, ummm...spotted in the Strand's window, a signed first edition of Sex & the City for $175:

Digital billboard at Hudson and Canal "an absolute menace," especially for "the ferocious manner in which the light blasts forth from what seems to be the heavens of the Lord himself." [NYCB]

Theatre 80 announces its first film screening in years with "Brooklyn Heist." [EVG]

Former Barnes & Noble on 6th Ave to become Trader Joe's. One big box becomes another. [Curbed]

Walking about Wallabout. [ENY]

"Community Board 3 continues to lead the city in the number of 311 Police Department commercial noise complaints — centered around nightlife activities. It is also the number one complaint to the community board." [Villager]

New David's

2009-11-13T08:07:00.005-05:00

Last month I reported that David's Shoe repair in the East Village was being gutted and that David's grandson--also named David--promised to reopen as the same business, just renovated. Some folks wondered if this could be true--maybe a fro-yo shop would open up instead.

Yesterday, the paper came off the windows to reveal--it's still David's Shoe Store.

The place is bigger and brighter inside, with a fresh paint job, but the big shoe-repair machines are in the back, wooden shoe lasts are hanging on the wall, and there's no fro-yo in sight. Also, the 1940s Cat's Paw lady is still stuck on the window with David's hand-painted signage. Let's hope she stays, too.

*Everyday Chatter

2009-11-12T07:45:00.004-05:00

Coming soon to Bedford Ave: Improvements to the public urination facilities once known as payphones! [NYS]

After I announced the Decapitator's treasure-hunt yesterday, readers and bloggers hustled to find the altered magazines. The Voice got one. So did Tokion. After a couple of tries, I managed to score one of my own. It's way better than an Easter egg. Did anyone else find one?

For bachelors who came to NYC seeking, as one actually said, "this sort of ‘Sex and the City’ lifestyle," life has gotten rather hard. [NYT]

Some unemployeds just can't stop spending hundreds a month on Starbucks and mani-pedis. [Gothamist]

Antique footwear discovered in Orchard demolition. [BB]

Enjoying the pleasures, and pains, of urban window peeping. [NYT]

Bloomberg buys Sitt's Coney--now what? [NYT]

A cabinet of curiosities at Coney Island. [ATZ]

Hello kitty. [EVG]

So many chains, so many new signs. The Chase at 8th and 2nd got a big one. Best Buy in Union Square got one. The 7/11 on 14th got one. You've got to cherish these authentic New York moments...

Obsolete

2009-11-12T07:15:00.000-05:00

Anna Jane Grossman will be discussing her book Obsolete at Word Bookshop in Greenpoint tonight at 7:30. Click over to Word for all the info.

I asked Anna, who grew up in Manhattan throughout the 80s and 90s, what she will miss the most of the things disappearing from the city. She mentioned chalk drawings on the street, seeing garment workers at their sewing machines from her bedroom window, and the nondescript businesses that have vanished.

As for a list of the top few, she writes the following:

Here are a few of the things that I'd like my future self to remember--objects that are either fading or don't exist. They made up the landscape of a city that wasn't necessarily better or worse...it just was a city that felt a little more like it was mine.

PAY PHONES
They stood tall on many a city block for decades. Quite a few remain, but today they are an example of an obsolete object that continues to exist only because it can be used for ad space. Pay phones give the ads an air of purpose; otherwise, they'd just be stand-alone billboards conspicuously demanding our attention like signs on the side of the highway.

With cell phones as omnipresent as they are, few people today ever have a need to use a pay phone. There's no denying that cell phones are more convenient (when they're charged, at least), but I'd argue that they pull us out of the world: we become so engrossed in our phone conversations that we are constantly bumping into people or talking so loudly in public that everyone else avoids us. Pay phones were more communal; each one could be a set for a million dramas a day. I remember which one I was at when I learned of my nephew's birth (57th and 5th street) or the one where, at 19, I called the first guy who ever broke my heart and cried into the phone (inside Reebok Sports Club on the Upper West Side). Surprisingly, this didn't win him back.

PHONE BOOKS
Today, we can fit all of Proust--translated into thirty languages, no less--on a flash drive the size of my fingernail. Pretty amazing. Also amazing: the way that the White Pages contained the name of every single person in New York! Or at least, almost. Even amazing-er? There were pages and pages of people named Grossman. Also, Lipschitz.

Not only were all these people located in one book, but also, all these people most likely owned the book as well. If you said, "I'm in the book," everyone knew what you meant. I few times as a kid, I recall calling the guy who was last in the phone book. His name was Zelmo Zzzzzip, and his answering machine said, "Hello, this is Zelmo."

While researching Obsolete, I tracked down Mr. Zzzzzip, whose real name is Ed Saxon. Saxon also had the pseudonym Aaron A-aaaba, and apparently he and another A-lover silently fought year after year, adding extra A's to their names and then hoping they were first when the book fell on their doorsteps. He set up the Zelmo answering machine just because he thought it'd be funny to listen to the messages from dumb kids like me! Now, Saxon lives in LA...and he told me he hadn't used a phone book in years.

TOKENS
Tokens were fazed out a few years ago; on some turnstiles you can see where the coin slot was patched over. Tokens were straight-forward objects. If you had a token on you, you had a token on you. If you didn't, you didn't. Today, I'm constantly thinking I have subway or bus fare only to find that my card has just $0.43 or some weird amount on it. Tokens didn't fool around like that. You either had a whole one or you had none at all. The first token I remember using had a big Y on it. Actually, it said NYC, but the Y was the letter that took center stage. In 1986 they introduced one that looked like a bull's eye with a magnetic, pearly center. I used to pop out the middle using a nail and a hammer and then would turn them into necklaces. Lastly there were small silver ones with pentagons cut out of their centers. When MetroCards were introduced, they were blue with yellow writing. I keep thinking this yellow card thing is just a fad.

WALK/DON'T WALK SIGNS
We're a rather literary city. A few writers have lived here. Did you know Shakespeare was actually a New Yorker? We're also a busy city. Your average New Yorker, however, used to know that he'd get to read at least two words a day: Walk and Don't Walk. When, about ten years ago, they replaced these signs with the little walking man and the huge red hand (I say "huge" because it's the same size as the man), I felt that our intelligence was insulted. Made our corners look like every other city's. Their little LED bulbs just don't have the same grit as the back-lit signs used to have. Now, some of them are even equipped with timers: apparently, we are slow in addition to being illiterate. But you know, whatever: New York pedestrians have no fear. Traffic signs are for sissies.

The Decapitator

2009-11-11T07:00:00.002-05:00

The Decapitator, an anonymous graffiti artist who has been attacking ads in London, Sao Paulo, and Paris, has arrived in New York--and, just this week, heads have started to roll!

photos from my flickr

In June, Environmental Graffiti wrote, "Kissing couples, beautiful models and aspiring celebs have all come under ‘the East London decapitator’s’ knife; their beautiful heads replaced by bony, blood drenched stumps. His artworks are defined by the media as culture jamming or sub-vertising, which Wikipedia describes as, ‘the practice of making spoofs or parodies of corporate and political advertisements in order to make a statement.'"

In these photos taken on 23rd Street in Chelsea, the Decapitator has claimed the head of Shakira. Looking at a nearby original, pre-decapitation, you can see how the Decapitator has meticulously prepared a perfect puzzle piece that fits the shoulders and removes the entire head, adding vivid blood spatter to the title text.

Now, the Decapitator steps up his/her game with a special issue of this bloody Rolling Stone, planted at Barnes & Noble in Union Square.

Wired compares the graffiti to the works of Ron English and The Splasher. It's an exciting innovation in culture jamming.

However, as Words & Pictures noted, the Decapitator "targets women over men by a five to one ratio." They wonder if the graffiti artist is a "Psycho who hates women or activist stickin' it to the Man?"

An unsettling thought. What do you think? Take a look at the entire oeuvre on the Decapitator's Flickr page--and don't miss the masterpiece in which Carrie Bradshaw carries her own head, Medusa-style, in a Sex & the City billboard.

*Everyday Chatter

2009-11-10T12:00:00.005-05:00

High Line condos just keep getting shinier and glassier. Here's HL23 with its quilted-metal, space-age skin and sloping windows that you know no shades will ever cover--because hovering over the High Line is the perfect spot for showing off your goods:

from my flickr

The Starlite Lounge, Brooklyn's oldest gay bar--and maybe the city's first black-owned gay bar--is on the chopping block, thanks to a new landlord. [Gothamist]

The District, the condo that provided a "pretend life," gets even more pretendy as they host Victoria's Secret Angel Bootcamp. [EVG]

The Slum Goddess goes for a swing on Spidey's magic ride. [NMNL]

Yuppie Overlords called out on the Bowery. [BB]

Bellevue's psych hospital retains its spooky charms. [GVDP]

Carpets removed from StuyTown's elevators, thanks to poop-shoed college kids: Says one maintenance man, "The last time I checked dogs didn't wear New Balance sneakers when they stomped their feces into a rug." [STLL]

Lenox Lounge is 70

2009-11-10T07:30:00.000-05:00

Before 2009 is over, there's still time to visit the Lenox Lounge and celebrate its 70th year in Harlem.

photos from my flickr

Opened in 1939, the Lenox Lounge was, according to its website, "the back drop for many jazz legends such as Billie Holiday, Miles Davis, and John Coltrane. The Jazz Club also known as the Zebra Room was once used by the Harlem Renaissance writes James Baldwin and Langston Hughes. It was also said to be a hangout for Malcolm X."

After a downturn, it was restored in 1999. Said owner Alvin Reed at the time, ''I'm a person of the past; I love the past. When I first took over, I had some people who didn't really appreciate the decor of the place. They were like, 'Oh we're glad it's a new owner. Now you can modernize this place.'" Thankfully, he didn't.

Today the Lenox Lounge retains its Art-Deco splendor. The floor is tiled, the ceiling is leather, the Zebra Room in back is still upholstered in zebra skin. The highly decorated bathroom doors are designated for "Ladies" and "Gents."

In the middle of the day, the Lenox Lounge feels like a comfy, gorgeous dive--in the best sense of the word--a neighborhood bar, nothing fancy. Old-timers sit at the bar's corner, where old-timers always seem to sit. You can find these same men in black-and-white photos on the wall, back in the days when they played in the Zebra Room.

The only reminder that it's 2009 and not 1939 are the flatscreen TVs, showing some sort of ballgame about which the friendly barmaid will be shouting over fumbles or home runs. And don't be surprised when someone buys you a drink for no other reason than they felt like it. It's that kind of place.

*Everyday Chatter

2009-11-09T11:45:00.001-05:00

More "Then & Now," the EV edition, from Alex. [FP]

The Bowery gets a flea market with "t-shirt stalls, vintage clothing stands, and soapmongers." [Racked]

New outpost for indie Book Culture on the UWS. [Racked]

Totonno's prepares to re-open. “This is New York,” said the owner. “Some things shouldn’t change.” [NYM]

This block-by-block map of the mayoral election is a fun time. Good to see the East Village and Lower East Side voted against Bloomberg--a blue oasis in a red sea! [NYT]

Overzealous Yankee fan Wall Streeters tossed confidential documents out their windows during the parade, including pay stubs, personal financial information, and "a balance sheet of someone's trust fund showing $300,000 in stock." [ESPN]

More reason to worry about the wonderful Nom Wah Tea Parlor of Doyers St. [BB]

Go mad for 14th St. [FNY]

A trip to the top of Colonnade Row. [NYT]

Mugging renews fears that Central Park is unsafe after dark. [Gothamist]

Even smokestacks have to be pretty. [EVG]

Provocateur

2009-11-09T07:00:00.000-05:00

The Gansevoort Hotel is soon to open a new, street-level club in the Meatpacking District. It's called "Provocateur" and it promises to be "the heart of glamour and sophistication."

After months of construction, the glass walls and roof of the club are now rising up over the video-surveilled, hot-pink, heart-covered billboards. Says Clubplanet, "It is rumored that entry will be like getting into Fort Knox."

Will this be the next site of neighborhood clashes? The next Beatrice Inn or Jane Hotel? Unlike other rowdy rooftop clubs, whose noise can be heard by low-rise neighbors (see Hotel Rivington), this one is right on the street level.

Blackbook reports "Rumors of a just under $5 million build-out and acoustical treatments to protect hotel guests from noise being done by a former NASA engineer..."

Already, there have been scuffles, albeit with other clubs. Another club on Varick bought the domain name for Provocateur New York and directed visitors back to their site. Reported the Post, "A Provocateur rep told Page Six, 'This is like Payless stealing the Christian Louboutin domain name.'"

Meow!

Clearly, with the pink billboards, the hearts, the Louboutin references flying, Provocateur is going hard for the Sex & the City crowd. But will they have cupcakes and dildos too? Who knows. You could find out--they are hiring.

*Everyday Chatter

2009-11-06T08:30:00.002-05:00

"The New Museum...is just a showcase for art bought during the luxury boom, and serves to connect the luxury shopping mall of Soho, the new luxury condos on the Lower East Side, and the luxury hotels further up Bowery--helping turn yet another swath of NYC into a playground for aristocrats." [Restless]

Also, the New Museum Store sells this item--"as a commentary and memorial to Ramone’s disappearing punk rock counterculture." It sells for $250:

Art D'Lugoff, Village royalty, dead at 85. [VV]

Just finished reading Paul Auster's new novel, Invisible. Highly recommend it. Here's an interview with the author at HuffPo.

Wall Street bankers get the swine flu vaccine before the city's poor schlubs. [Gothamist]

Mars Bar bankers get vandalized. [EVG]

Taking a long walk across the city with a waitress from Greenpoint. [NYT]

How Rev. Billy almost, sort of, became the mayor. [LM]

City Pianos

2009-11-06T07:45:00.000-05:00

Just like in old Bugs Bunny cartoons--

city pianos go flying--

into upper story windows.

*Everyday Chatter

2009-11-05T12:31:00.012-05:00

Residences for women--a flashback to the past still surviving in the city. [NYT]

"The Vanishing City," the documentary, screens tomorrow night. Check it out! [VC]

"Biggus Buckus," the imperial Bloomberg: "New Yorkers know...that we’re bought and paid for. We know that there is something unseemly, even humiliating, about submitting ourselves to be ruled by the richest man in town." [NYer]

For what it's worth, people are still letting it hang out at the Standard. I watched this guy stand in front of the window, strip down to his tighty-whities, and walk back and forth a few times while a bunch of French tourists pointed and took pictures:

Enjoy King Con Brooklyn, a fest for Brooklyn comic book artists and more. [McB]

More exhibitionistic bathing on tap. [EVG]

Dig this classic "Gowanus Canal Song." Even in 1898 the smell was "horrid." [PMFA]

Bella's Luncheonette

2009-11-05T07:15:00.000-05:00

I've written here before about the feelings I have (and had) for Elizabeth Street. In this post about the street's massive hyper-gentrification, I mentioned the closure of Bella's luncheonette and its 1998 transformation to Cafe Habana as a watershed moment, a first nail in the street's coffin.

From my stash of non-digital photos, these are the only shots I ever took of Bella's, both from the exterior.

The ghost of the HOME COOKING sign remains today, but the rest is gone. "Drink Coca-Cola" and "BELLAS COFFEE SHOP" have vanished.

I wish I had pictures of the interior. I remember a counter with swivel stools and a clock on the wall that advertised St. Joseph aspirin.

I remember sitting at the window eating a cheeseburger after walking back from the 1996 Yankees victory parade and seeing Jim Jarmusch walk by--an event which was, in some ways, more exciting than the Yankees parade.

*Everyday Chatter

2009-11-04T13:15:00.005-05:00

How Bloomberg got away with buying New York. [Atlantic]

“Bloomberg represented this development gone wild... That seemed like a great idea when times were flush.” [NYT]

1980s style (like everything else these days): "sanitized for your reconsumption." [NYT]

Young New Yorkers using texts to find sex: "The atmosphere is fluid, like an eBay auction. This leads to a series of marketing strategies... If you have several options perpetually before you, and if technology makes it easier to jump from one option to another, you will naturally adopt the mentality of a comparison shopper." [NYT]

from my flickr

Alert: That "free" chair you found on the street just might be cyber-stalking you. [Curbed]

The East Village "was nothing before Le Souk arrived." [EVG]

Independent merchants not doing well at new Yankee Stadium, "I think what they’re trying to do is force everybody else out." [NYT]

Hey Big Spender

2009-11-04T08:45:00.007-05:00

Yesterday, many people in this city voted to keep Michael Bloomberg as our mayor. Yet, for all his arrogance, he won by a very narrow margin, shocking his aides, who fully expected a landslide. Nearly half the voters in the city have come to their senses. It's the other half I worry about--especially the 49% of 18-29 year olds who supported Bloomberg.

Maybe the kids aren't alright. Maybe they're scared, still hoping a Daddy Warbucks will save them. Because, as the faux-affluent bubble of the past decade has burst, we're seeing the wreckage of people who have no idea how to manage their money with thrift.

Looking back to 2006, at the height of our economic insanity, the Times profiled "Bank of Mom and Dad" beneficiaries like 23-year-old Jason, who "lives a postcollege life in Manhattan that is very nearly typical... [His] walls are decorated with pennants and posters from Syracuse University... [He] carries peanut-butter sandwiches to work," and he gets a monthly check from his parents.

Parental support in your early 20s may be useful and often necessary for getting your foot in the door of this overpriced city. But what happens when it becomes a point of pride? When it goes on too long? When it's the only way to stay afloat?

In the summer of 2009, we heard that parents were pulling the plug on New York's "trustafarians."

On television The Bank of Mom & Dad recently debuted. In the show, viewers meet "deadbeats" like Christina, described by Slate as "a 33-year-old with an apartment in Queens and a mouth perpetually scrunched in a petulant sideways smirk"--and $38,000 in debt.

TIME

Last week the New York Times' Room for Debate looked at "The 40-Something Dependent Child" asking experts their opinion on adult children who may approach middle age still relying on their elderly parents to subsidize their retirements.

Holding on to the fantasy of endless financial support, of money growing on trees, young people remain helpless, even as they age into adulthood. And we all end up paying for it.

American Consumers this week made TIME Magazine's Top 25 People to Blame for the Financial Crisis, in the battle of Main St. Vs. Wall St.

And now we've got the hipster-made T-shirt "I Can't Afford to Heart NY." (It's actually printed on American Apparel shirts.)

photo Mark Byron

Our mayor is a man who set the record for Biggest Spender--he spent more of his private fortune on the campaign than any other politician in US history (close to $100 million). At a time when we should be valuing thrift, saving, and moderation, we're about to get Business As Usual for 4 more years--and maybe more, since Bloomberg abolished term limits.

What kind of role model is Bloomberg for the young people who voted for him? What do they see when they look at him? He might have worked hard for his billions--clearly, he invested and saved well--but that's not what he flaunts.

When we look at Bloomberg we see a shower of dollars, a magical money tree that never stops yielding golden fruit, and the promise that if you just spend enough, you'll get what you want in the end.

*Everyday Chatter

2009-11-03T14:15:00.001-05:00

Alex in NYC provides a visual before-and-after of downtown. [FP]

It's not Drew Barrymore, but someone very naked got up on the bar at Mars Bar recently. [SG]

As Guss' Pickles moves to Brooklyn, kimchi readies to move in. [BB]

In the recent past, the sight of a decorated Checker meant free rides for everyone from Taxi Ray. Today, it means free rides for customers of HSBC Bank only. Because, you know, New York's got "different values" now:

The battle of St. Saviour's continues. [QC]

Tribute for Snoopy. [EVG]

New High Line design is breaking ankles. [Gothamist]

The Coney Island polar bears have officially plunged. [ATZ]