Jeremiah's Vanishing New York

*Everyday Chatter

2009-07-06T13:02:00.006-04:00

Squatters help to save Ray's Candy. [Villager]

Abandoned Williamsburg condos taken over by squatters--yuppies cry for help. [Curbed]

Ruins of the Gilded Age: More abandoned luxury buildings across the nation. [NYT]

Fire at Rosenwach Water Tank company. [Gothamist]

With Joe Jr's gone from the Village, there's only one other left in town. [EVG]

A marriage proposal on the side of a building. [BB]

CUNY demolishes a historic building in Queens. [AT]

Last Supper at Joe's

2009-07-06T08:00:00.000-04:00

Last week I had my last meal at Joe Jr.'s: cheeseburger deluxe and chocolate egg cream. As Grieve reported, Joe's has closed.

The news came out last week that Joe's would close on Sunday after 35 years in the Village. They lost their lease--one man at the counter stated, "They had the lease, but the landlord backed out at the last minute." Others said about the landlord, "It's the son, not the father, who's making problems." In an interview on NY1 the landlord said he would try to extend the lease through July and, about his son, "forget him altogether." But no dice.

On my visit, the little diner was packed and people kept flowing in--to sign a petition, give their regrets and outrage, and eat a meal. Some people were in denial, "It won't really happen." Others were somber, "It's a terrible shame." Some were angry, "The landlord is a greedy prick." The waitress was exhausted, "I haven't stopped since 3:00 this afternoon."

The petition on the counter filled up fast, people signing their names under the words: "DON'T LET JOE JR'S CLOSE: After 35 years in the neighborhood, please let the landlord know how important Joe's is to the Greenwich Village community. Joe's is our kitchen, our meeting place, our hangout, our comfort food. Our neighborhood will lose a treasure should it shut down this weekend."

Next to the petition was a paper with the landlord's name and number, urging people to call. One woman called on the spot, leaving an angry message for the landlord stating, among other things, "This is a shonda!"

Outside, passersby stopped to read the sign in shock, crying out, "Oh, no!" They went in to sign the petition, too. People lingered on the sidewalk, talking about what could be done to save Joe's--hire a lawyer, organize a rally, call Tom Duane!--and about the many losses of the vanishing city, in which anything can be taken away without much warning at all.

*Everyday Chatter

2009-07-03T09:00:00.001-04:00

On 7th Street, an artist in the night paints over the ads on a billboard. Assuming it was another anti-consumer guerrilla art project by the Public Ad Campaign, I asked the guy, "What are you working on?" He said, "It's for a movie. Remember Me." That's the one with "R-Pattz."

The High Line is helping to sell condos. And that's why you call it an amenity. [TRD]

Swarms of upscale food trucks whine and refuse to play by street rules--aim to push out the city's long-term hot dog vendors. [NYT]

You can plant all the pretty flowers you want on the LES, but you can't stop the locals from picking them. [Curbed]

Superdive: "frattier than the frattiest frat party imaginable, and was populated by about 90% business-casual clad iBanker types, and the plain-looking, done-up to the nines girls that follow them around." [Eater]

More on the closing of Joe Jr's--1,000+ signatures so far. [CR]

*Everyday Chatter

2009-07-02T12:00:00.000-04:00

TONY shows how MePa-goers really are shallow and vapid--the women seek diplomats and guys with Hamptons houses, and the men want girls in rompers with nice teeth ("the biggest turnoff is a girl with a really small ass")--while hipsters and perverts come off as much more human. [TONY]

The stink of death is gone, but Von Furstenberg is still pumping perfume over the Meatpacking District. [Racked]

Yes, Cafe Figaro is now not only a Qdoba, but also a bank. [BB]

Celebs abandoning Manhattan? Not bad. [Gothamist]

And Manhattan's housing prices are falling. Not bad either. [NYT]

And a fratty EV bar closes. Also not bad. [EVG]

Joe Jr.'s

2009-07-02T11:33:00.011-04:00

VANISHING

I got the following email today from JVNY reader and writer David Kamp:

"HELP! Just walked past my beloved local greasy spoon (6th Ave at 12th St) and they have big handwritten signs in the window saying they've lost their lease after 35 yrs. They are asking people to sign a petition to save Joe Jrs and to 'spread the word,' I guess in hopes of pressuring the landlord not to cut them loose."

*Update: Kamp rounds up the blog coverage and Grub St. says "it's really over."

See more from my visit to Joe Jr.'s this past December.

Another Wine Bar

2009-07-02T07:00:00.001-04:00

Last December, we heard about the sad closing of Henington Press on 6th Avenue in south Park Slope. The press had been running there for 96 years and 3 generations. (The link above will take you to radio and video interviews with the owner from WNYC.)

What's coming to this spot next? One of the ever-popular businesses of the Now. Right up there with the fro-yo shops and the ramen joints. It's a wine bar.

Called 491 Six, they plan to open in the fall with a series of private parties. In the meantime, their windows are full of city building sculptures. Blog Heart Fish has more.

*Everyday Chatter

2009-07-01T15:15:00.004-04:00

Man leaves $1960 laptop on a table at Starbucks while he goes to pee--amazingly, it got stolen! [BP]

Condos are so hard to off-load, they're giving away free cars. [Curbed]

After much cajoling, The Prime finally managed to get a resident. Of course, in the NYC fishbowl, they're having some curtain challenges:

Times Square pedestrian mall "unworthy of New York." But which New York? In a city taken over by suburbanist mall-rats, it kind of fits right in. [NYT]

Revisit the Bowery of 1981. [EVG]

The Hot Festival is here and queer--participant Penny Arcade, "queer is anyone who has experienced a period of isolation and exclusion so profound that they could never exclude anyone else." [CR]

"A lot of drama for a pug" indeed. [Gothamist]

In non-NYC tech-related news, a 13-year-old can't figure out how to work Walkman cassette player. [SFG]

Brooklyn Show

2009-07-01T07:00:00.002-04:00

The 440 Gallery in Park Slope is currently featuring an exhibit called "The Brooklyn Show." Running until July 25, the show features paintings and photographs, all of Brooklyn scenes.

The industrial landscape of Gowanus, Coney Island in black and white, Hasidic Jews riding the subway in bright orange seats.

Corner drugstores, ice-cream trucks, the sun warming a block full of brownstones.

It's a good show. Check it out. Click for info.

*Everyday Chatter

2009-06-30T13:00:00.000-04:00

Is the Bowery Salvation Army, closed months ago, really becoming a high-end sushi restaurant? [Curbed]

ABC No Rio gets money to stay alive. [NYT]

Grieve begins chronicling the Superdive Diaries--and it's a mess over there. [EVG]

This creepy Michael Jackson painting turned up in a Meatpacking gallery window:

And more weirdness: A piece of Jackson's Neverland Ranch now resides at Coney. [Gothamist]

More gang-banging off Tompkins Square Park. [NMNL]

No Longer Empty

2009-06-30T07:00:00.001-04:00

As the storefronts of New York City sit vacant, thanks to a combination of landlord greed and economic meltdown, No Longer Empty steps in to fill the voids.

"Revitalizing space : unlocking creativity...No Longer Empty is a group of curators and artists who present thought provoking exhibits in empty store fronts." Their first stop: The Chelsea Hotel. Running until July 18, they've taken over the former space of the Capitol Fishing Tackle shop.

Inside, there's a vaguely nautical theme--the curators told me that each show will have a theme somewhat in line with the space's former occupants--beach balls pile on the floor, there are sailors and portholes.

There is also tattooing imagery, a few life preservers, and a collection of sculptural books on how to catch "big fish" like Andy Warhol and Allen Ginsberg.

It reminded me of my favorite moment in time on 42nd Street, when the empty theaters were filled with art installations, surrounded by smut shops and peep shows. It was, to me, the perfect combination of aesthetics and cultures. Art and sex.

There are no smut shops around the No Longer Empty show, but it does feel a little bit like the early 1990s--when a recession opened up creative possibilities in the city.

There is still hope.

Zine Fest

2009-06-29T07:00:00.002-04:00

This past weekend, the Zine Fest ran at the Brooklyn Lyceum.

Formerly known as Public Bath #7, the Brooklyn Lyceum is worth checking out itself, though the outside is more impressive than the inside. It opened in 1908 and was closed by Robert Moses in 1937. According to the Times, "Local children sorely missed their pool, and at one point, wearing bath towels, marched in Park Slope to protest its closing." After falling for years into disrepair, today it's a performance and art space.

The Zine Fest attracted scores of paper lovers. Several well-known zines and zine-makers were present, including: the Lower East Side's ABC No Rio, the World War 3 Magazine Collective, dirty queer zine Straight to Hell, the East Village Inky, the Center for Book Arts, and Printed Matter.

While the crowd was mixed, it was mostly "pre-Hipster," skewed toward middle-age, alternative 40-somethings who came of age before the Internet, before Web 2.0, and way before the Blogosphere. The event was a throwback to the days when you told a small chunk of the world your quotidian life story by stealing time on the office Xerox machine and buying your friends beers to help you collate and staple.

The Zine Fest even came complete with some anti-blog signage:

I came away inspired, thinking: What if a blog could turn into a zine? What would the Vanishing New York zine look like?

*Everyday Chatter

2009-06-26T12:00:00.004-04:00

How NYC mourns the death of Michael Jackson. [Gothamist]

The city's yuppie bars are already cashing in on Michael's death. [Grub]

Everything you wanted to know (or maybe didn't) about a night at Superdive. [EVG]

McNally's new Bowery pizza joint gets a golden shower. [BB]

Speaking of golden showers, it might be time for the Delicatessen pisser to ready his aim once more--as the offensive eatery opens a "Models Only" lounge. No one is allowed in except models. Oh, and they will be massaged for free. But will that include special facials from above? [Eater]

The showdown between pier queens and Village neighbors gets heated. [Villager]

Pride Weekend kicks off today with the Trans March for Social Justice and then the Drag March in Tompkins Square Park...followed by tomorrow's Dyke March, before the big parade on Sunday.

This weekend and next, take an ambient, absurdist, audio tour of Manhattan. [Absurdist]

A peek inside the NYPL through time. [NYPL]

The Wiz

2009-06-26T07:00:00.000-04:00

In honor of Michael Jackson today, a tour through the New York City of The Wiz.

Released in 1978, The Wiz presents a frightening, fantastic, post-apocalyptic vision of New York City. It was filmed in Astoria Studios and on location--but many of those locales have vanished.

From a cozy apartment in Harlem (where she's "never been south of 125th St."), Dorothy (Diana Ross) travels to Oz, landing at the New York State Pavilion in Queens' Flushing Meadows Park, where munchkins were turned into graffiti by the Wicked Witch of the East, aka the City Parks Commissioner.

New York Magazine

Traveling through a landscape of urban decay, she finds Michael Jackson as the Scarecrow in a junkyard garden. Wikipedia writes, "Michael Jackson's performance as the Scarecrow was one of the only positively reviewed elements of the film, with critics noting that Jackson possessed 'genuine acting talent' and 'provided the only genuinely memorable moments.' In 1980, Jackson stated that his time working on The Wiz was 'my greatest experience so far...I'll never forget that.'"

The Scarecrow in crucifixion pose

After Michael's song and dance number, they ease on down the road, past mountains of uncollected garbage, and along the tracks of Coney Island's Cyclone. The amusement park around it has gone "el foldo," closed down, says the Tin Man presciently. Next, they pick up the Cowardly Lion, who busts out of a stone lion at a replica Public Library built inside Astoria Studios.

Michael Jackson

The yellow-brick road takes them through a danger-filled Hoyt-Schermerhorn subway station and Times Square's 8th Ave., where Spandex-clad hookers drug them with poppy dust. Thus doped, they nod out on a tenement rooftop.

The Caprice and Eros I theaters, both vanished

Revived, our heroes glimpse the Emerald City of Lower Manhattan and ease on across the Brooklyn Bridge for a massive dance number in the courtyard of the World Trade Center.

There, the Wiz sends them off to kill the Wicked Witch of the West, who runs a sweatshop down in the sewer system. After the flying monkeys, a gang of bikers, chases them through Shea Stadium, they of course manage to melt the witch and save the day.

World Trade Center/Emerald City

As is well known, Michael Jackson was most happy in his fantasy lands--and the New York of The Wiz is pure fantasy. The city that inspired it is gone. Michael Jackson is gone. Roger Ebert wrote yesterday, on the occasion of Jackson's sudden death, "Oz was where he wanted to live. [Scarecrow] was his most truly autobiographical role. He could understand a character who felt stuffed with straw."

At the end of the film, Michael as the Scarecrow says, "Success, fame, fortune--they're all illusions." Nothing matters, he says, but the love you have in your life. As we saw last night in spontaneous gatherings all across the city, he was loved by many.

The Wiz cast

*Everyday Chatter

2009-06-25T12:00:00.001-04:00

Here's an idea for the Backsiders, along with laundry, start singing on the fire escape. One woman off the High Line is making it work for her. [NYT]

This High Line tour has a close-up shot of those leopard print unmentionables. [FNY]

Some new "bespoke cocktails" joint is actually asking its customers to respect the neighbors and keep it down. [Grub]

On Mott Street, collapsing buildings and vampires. [EVG]

If you buy a $98 Bowery T from Varvatos, says Alex, "you're pathetic." [FP]

No more dancing in the Washington Square fountain. [GVDP]

Beauty Before & After

2009-06-25T07:30:00.001-04:00

About a month ago, Beauty Bar opened another outlet of its growing chain in Bushwick, Brooklyn. The original opened on 14th Street in 1995.

The New York Times in 1997 called the ambiance here and at Beauty's sister bars "part theater, part seance to the ghosts of the spaces' former occupants." The former occupant here was a beauty parlor owned by Florence Cusmano. According to the Voice, "When they took over and turned it into a watering hole, they kept on the then 87-year-old Cusmano until she couldn't make the trip from her apartment anymore."

An addition to the Vanishing New York flickr pool turned up this ghostly image:

Photo by Aonghais MacInnes on flickr

You can play "note the differences." There aren't many, really. But the "Please Be Quiet" sign in the new photo is definitely missing in the old.

*Everyday Chatter

2009-06-24T15:27:00.006-04:00

The Dystopia is officially here: MTA "sells out public," begins selling naming rights to city subway stations. No way in Hell will I ever say, "Get off at Doritos Station." [NBC]

More bad news for the Bowery: Varvatos is selling Bowery T's for $98 a pop. [Racked]

Gowanus development meetings kept super-secret from neighborhood folks. [FIB]

It was only a matter of time before advertising agencies figured out a way to capitalize on the popularity of treats trucks. Here's a truck whose soul purpose is to advertise yet another TV show about doctors--but, by the way, FREE SNO-CONES!

Please save us from this Save the Nightlife committee. [Gothamist]

The CB3 gets bait and switched yet again. [EVG]

100's of calls to 311...and nobody's listening. [BB]

Your ticket to the Rent Guidelines Board Circus. [SG]

Parisian Dance Land

2009-06-24T07:00:00.000-04:00

Grieve and I were on the same wavelength recently when we both thought of doing a screenshot guide to Kubrick's Killer's Kiss, which played this weekend at IFC. As he showed, Killer's Kiss is one of the best cinematic sources of imagery from 1950s New York City. It's packed with scenes of Times Square, and one of my favorite recurring scenes in the film takes place at a taxi dance hall.

all images here from Killer's Kiss

Called Pleasureland in the film, it was shot at the Parisian Dance Land at 49th and Broadway. In archival photos, you see it next to the RKO Palace ("8 Acts Vaudeville"), above a Whelan Drugs store, and underneath a big, neon advertisement for Sylvania (Television Sets! Radio Tubes!).

Across 49th, a multi-story wraparound ad for the Mayfair Theater was forever changing its bill: Robert Mitchum in Angel Face, Robert Taylor in Above & Beyond, Gary Cooper in High Noon, William Holden in Escape from Fort Bravo.

In 1955, when Killer's Kiss came out, if you were dancing inside the Parisian and you looked over your partner's shoulder, out the window and uptown, you would be met with the startling and no doubt stimulating image of a giant-sized, three-dimensional, bikini-clad Jane Russell, bowie knife hitched to her scanty bottoms as she dives for treasure in Underwater!

A man in 1955 might imagine that the 1 of 50 "charming hostesses" in his arms was Jane Russell, and not a dancer described by Leo Rosten in his amazing essay "Taxi Dance," where we meet, among others, Blossom, a girl with a toothache from New Brunswick, New Jersey, who glumly recalls her former life as a five-and-ten store clerk and a movie usherette. Who keeps sighing and saying, "Gee, it's too bad you had to choose me tonight. Really, I'm lively."

According to Rosten, a ticket bought you one minute of dance time and, every minute, a buzzer went off, telling you to give the girl another ticket. You had to keep going back to the booth for more tickets. Your partner would tell you all the presents she likes to get, like "Lingerie, bracelet, purse, maybe an evening gown. Honey! Let's you and me go out tomorrow night. Mmmm! If you keep me past nine, of course, you can make up my time."

In "Taxi Dance," Rosten briefly visits the Parisian, the site of Killer's Kiss. There he meets Flo, Hazel, and Babe, each with a housepet who "thank God...can't tell what goes on" in their wild apartments.

I wonder, watching this film, if any of those girls are in these scenes, if the dancers are real dancers or actors. But Rosten visited the Parisian in 1938 and Kubrick was there 15 years later. Flo, Hazel, and Babe would have been middle-aged by then, married or moved away. Maybe back to the five-and-ten or murdered in some noirish scene. But anyway, off the Parisian dance floor for good.

Also see:
1551 Broadway

*Everyday Chatter

2009-06-23T14:27:00.008-04:00

NYC Prep: "this paean to Upper East Side plutocrats looks a little out of date — if the camera panned the other side of Madison Avenue, it would show darkened store windows and 'for rent' signs." [NYT]

Take a close look at this photo sent in by tipster Reed. "New York's Oldest Restaurant, Est. 1879"...Gage & Tollner soon to be an Arby's:

Fight for rent stablization tonight at Cooper Union. [Gothamist]

Visit Frenchie's Gym--for a Chandleresque, Brooklyn experience...Frenchie "does it with love." [SNY]

Is the former Cafe Figaro getting banked? [BB]

Will the Parks Dept say "no way" to Washington Square Park's private security force? [WSP]

Celebrate Pride with a look at pre-Stonewall NYC. [BBoys]

Another Myrtle tenement torn down--"as a precaution." AKA "to make room for a condo." [QC]

Note from the Backside #6

2009-06-23T07:15:00.001-04:00

Yet another Backsider has begun hanging items from laundry lines and fire escapes behind the Coop. They write:

"As you know there's been an underwear battle going on--clotheslines hung up by tenants to show protest of the bars inches from people's windows, and other problems. I'm sending a picture of the latest installment--pantyhose and douchebag." (A tribute to ho's and douches?) The words "Douche Bag" are written on it in black marker.

Patio-goers should definitely wear protective headgear with this little number dangling above--nozzle-side down...

Meanwhile, an additional protester has launched a new blog with the URL "Cooper Square Douchebags." It's a trend.

More Notes:
Note 1
Note 2
Note 3
Note 4
Note 5

*Everyday Chatter

2009-06-22T12:00:00.003-04:00

On the renovation of Washington Square Park: "rich folk who are sponsoring this want to change the character of the park from the free-wheeling street-theater scene to something that resembles their backyard terraces." Sounds familiar, doesn't it? [Post via Curbed]

Teens today "do not have much sympathy for alienated antiheroes." They're a generation of joiners. So to Holden Caulfield they say, "Shut up and take your Prozac." [NYT]

Grieving the loss of beloved white cat in the East Village. [NYT]

Anti-ramen graffiti saves the day. [EVG]

No Longer Empty storefronts are art galleries at the Chelsea. [LWL]

photo: Softies Central, JVNY flickr pool

A building collapses on Myrtle Avenue. [NYT]

Track down a mystery of Diamond Jim Brady. [GLF]

If a tree falls in Brooklyn, does anyone listen? [ENY]

Mark your calendars:
6/26, 7pm: Attend the 24th annual AIDS Candlelight Vigil in Greenwich Village, at Sheridan Square Park and Christopher St.

Check out the "Indigenous" show--art by native New Yorkers--at the City Reliquary, 7/1 - 8/15.

Labor Day weekend brings a Rockabilly & Burlesque Festival to Coney Island.

Whatever Works

2009-06-22T07:30:00.000-04:00

Recent reviews of Woody Allen's latest film, Whatever Works, have not been kind. A.O. Scott at The Times said, "None of it works," and The New Yorker's Anthony Lane called it a "comedy about a waxwork (an aging New York Jewish intellectual) and a host of ancient artifacts...being brought back to life. It should be called "Manhattan: Battle of the Upper West Side.'"

So the Upper West Side is where I went to see this movie on its opening weekend--at ground zero for such Manhattan "waxworks" and various other alter kockers: The Lincoln Plaza Cinemas. There the crowd laughed throughout the movie and applauded mightily at the end. They loved it. I loved it.

I sent a special JVNY operative into the ladies room to take notes in the chattering line.

"One of his best."
"A real New York movie."

But what about all the bad reviews?

"I never, never, never go by the critics."
"It's a throwback to old Woody Allen, like Manhattan, back to his comedy, plus a little cynicism, and love and bitterness."

"It's too sharp," said one woman whose 50 years in New York have made no dent in her Eastern European accent, "so it's misunderstood."

Sharpness. Bitterness. Cynicism. These add up to a critical sensibility that is vanishing from New York, along with everything else worth holding onto.

The script for Whatever Works dates back to the 1970s. It's the film Allen never got around to making. As New York Magazine said "This movie is literally vintage Woody Allen. In fact, it calls to mind a brand of Jewish humor that has, in recent years, been all but scrubbed out—neurotic, depressive, abrasive, excluded." I would add: That's the brand of New York City that's also being scrubbed out.

What Allen knows, like those women in the bathroom line, is that kvetching doesn't equal hopelessness. It is hope. And this movie is exquisitely hopeful. In it, people change for the better. They receive the sort of transformation that people used to come to New York in search of.

an opinion on the Lower East Side

So it is this, above all else, that makes the movie an anachronism: In Whatever Works, a family of blonde, Jesus-loving, gun-toting Republicans from the middle of America come to the Lower East Side and assimilate into New York culture--they become group-sex swinging, homosexual, atheistic artists who love the city for undoing their buttoned-up souls.

That doesn't happen today. Today, those types of people change the city. The city doesn't change them. And we all suffer for it. New York as a place where people come to find their true unruly selves, at the expense of society's approval, is vanishing--and it's that New York that haunts this film, a ghostly waxwork almost forgotten.

See Also:
Neurotics Vs. Narcissists
Suburbanization & Anti-Semitism

*Everyday Chatter

2009-06-19T12:00:00.004-04:00

The New York Subway Project chronicles all 468 subway stops in New York City. It even comes with an interactive map! [via Trainjotting]

Sally Young and The Bowery Neighbors have put together a website chronicling the history of (just about) every building on the Bowery from Houston to 9th. Check out their East Bowery Survey here.

Admiral's Row is collapsing. [Curbed]

Did a "disgruntled old man neighborhood blogger" tag the accursedly named DBGB? [Eater]

Is it Dallas or New York City? That's the question I ask myself whenever I walk past the new face of Astor Place:

This whole thing about wild hawks infiltrating East Village eatery "Birdie's" sounds like a viral marketing stunt to me. [Gothamist]

Alphabet City gets Novogratzed--with a new mansion between A & B. [EVG]

Another gas station goes--and big-box development seems likely for this corner of the LES. [BB]

Take a walk along Court Street. [FNY]

Seltzer Man

2009-06-19T08:30:00.001-04:00

For years, I have had this dream about running into Walter Backerman, the seltzer man, the best in town, third-generation schlepper of fizz, and owner of the oldest seltzer route in the city (dating back to 1919). Well, you walk the streets of New York long enough, and eventually some of your dreams come true.

I ran into Walter on Bleecker Street.

Amid the flurry of high-end super-shoppers, parked among gleaming BMWs and SUVs, Walter guarded his rickety delivery truck while his helper ran seltzer bottles in and out of buildings. Walter watches the truck because the traffic cops love to give him tickets.

Maybe it's the truck itself that attracts the traffic cops. It's no beauty queen, but a beat-up step van filled with character. The cab's back panel is lined with photos, autographs from the famous (Sarah Jessica Parker and Whoopi Goldberg), clippings from the many newspaper and magazine articles on Walter, and faded snapshots from the old days of seltzer hauling.

"This'll be the last picture taken in this truck," Walter told me as I snapped his photo for the blog. He's getting a new truck. A sleeker, roomier model. But the old shelves will go with him, as will the wooden crates made by a customer--and the bottles, of course, those gorgeous antique bottles, some the same as his father and grandfather used to schlep.

Walter is friendly and chatty, and he likes to tell stories. He recalled the old days, back in the 1970s, when he delivered to dangerous neighborhoods and kept a gun stuck in his waistband to fend off thieves. Today, in Bloomberg's New York, it's the traffic cops he has to fight.

"So what was better," I asked, "the traffic cops or the muggers?"

"Same shit," said his helper, Derek. "Only difference is, you can't touch a traffic cop, but the muggers you can fight back."

Walter agreed, laughing, "The sneak thieves. I could take 'em. They put a gun on me, I'd take out my money, like this. I was arrogant, counting it out slow, one, two, three. Right in their face. I'd tell 'em: You better shoot straight, 'cause if you miss, I'm gonna make you eat that gun."

Nobody messes with the seltzer man.

Walter Backerman, back in the day

Hear Walter on Radio Diaries
Read about him in the New York Times
Read more in Imbibe
In Walter's own words: "...I remember loading the truck in the Summer of 1964, and seeing another seltzerman with a tall multi-paneled forest green bottle in a case of ten, next to me. I pulled it out to admire it. It was cold, having just been filled, and in the heat, it seemed to be sweating. I held it to the light, and spun it around in the air, and as the sun reflected off its dazzling brilliance, it looked like a jewel ablaze. It was at that defining moment, that I fell in love with seltzer bottles..."

Payphone Man

2009-06-18T08:30:00.000-04:00

There is a man in the East Village who has walked the streets for years, checking the coin return slots of payphones for spare change. He used to carry a Tower Records bag. Now he carries a Duane Reade bag. Years ago, our paths crossed at the same time and place each day, early morning by Love Saves the Day. There, he would slip his finger into the payphone's coin return, often coming up empty.

If I got to the phone before him, I would put a quarter in the return slot. Not because I thought it would help him financially, but because when you're searching for something rare, unexpectedly finding it can really lift your spirits.

My morning schedule and route changed and I stopped passing that corner. I didn't see the man for years. When Love Saves the Day closed and the new ramen place ripped out the payphones, I thought of him. I wondered if he was still alive.

Recently, I ran into the man near the same corner and spoke to him.

"They took out your payphone," I said as we passed Love Saves the Day.

"Yeah, they did," he said, "Business has been down all around."

"Is it because of cellphones?"

"Yeah, cellphones. And you know what they're doing now? They make impressions of the key and open the phones. They just empty the coin box."

He stopped to check another payphone's return dish. I asked, "How many phones do you check each day?"

"Whenever I see one! But the odds are zero to five, zero to twenty."

*Everyday Chatter

2009-06-17T13:15:00.006-04:00

Condo developers try to make the recession work: At 14 W. 14th St., "Value Is the New Luxury." But the renderings look like the same old luxury:

French anarchists take Union Square Barnes & Noble and Sephora by storm. [NYT]

...anarchist's reading of The Coming Insurrection "eventually degenerat[ed] into a profanity-filled rant about the misery of work and the banal New York art scene." [AM]

Lower East Side a "Disneyland for drunks." [EVG]

Bloomberg and Burden pound yet another stake through the heart of New York City--as they agree to slaughter Coney Island. [RS]

On the MTA, more yunnies = harsher urban etiquette signage. [CR]

Checking in with the Bowery Stakeholders. [BB]

"This bespells doom." --Sedaris, at the Strand, on the Kindle. [NYT]

Park Slopers, don't leave your stuff lying around--it'll get stolen. [BP]

Also on 14th, the replacement for long-defunct oldest Spanish bookstore in NYC, Libreria Lectorum, has arrived. Bunga's Den, with its rather rectal-sounding name, is being opened by the same guys who run Johnny's dive bar on Greenwich: