Vanishing New York Backup

VANISHING meatpackers with bloody aprons vanish under luxe towers Visiting the Meatpacking District, I skipped Pastis and ate some fresh meat at Hector's, where the burger is bought twice a day from local packers. Hector's has been tucked under the High Line for more than 20 years , the owner (whose name is not Hector) told me, but the building has been a restaurant for close to 100. They used to serve a crowd of meatpackers , but the meat guys are vanishing. Now the place is filled with construction workers, all of them laboring to wipe out the meatpackers, replacing their plants with luxury high-rises. When the building is done and the meat guys and construction workers have gone, who's going to eat Hector's burgers deluxe and piles of roast beef? This area has been the site of overwhelming, lightning-fast, preposterous change . The punks, leather-daddies, and transgender hookers have all been swept away. Not everyone is happy about it. Chelsea Now reported that resi...

Balazs hotel rises over buckets of bloody, rotting meat A VanishingNY reader sent in this satire from the Onion, which I think is poking a bit of fun, but does beg the question: When and why did the wealthy start desiring to live, work, and play in the city's most undesirable locations? A glassy undulation is coming to the malodorous Gowanus [Gowanus Lounge] , Balazs' Standard Hotel squats over buckets of bloody offal in the Meatpacking District [my flickr] [NYMag] , and in the midst of Holland Tunnel onramp traffic sprouts the Zinc Building [my flickr] [Curbed] . Fashion model and photogs saunter past buckets of melting animal fat When the Diane von Furstenberg store opened recently in the now super-chic Meatpacking District, abutting a packing plant that hauls giant buckets of bloody, fly-buzzed offal to the body-fluid-slick sidewalk each day, I am sure that the DVF people just figured the meat would be gone in no time. Meanwhile, just pretend the air doesn't ...

VANISHED tonight i passed by this spontaneous memorial at the shuttered CBGB's CBGB's founder Hilly Kristal has passed on to rock heaven. ( Read his last interview. ) According to AM New York , the East Village is quickly following him to his grave: "When owner Hilly Kristal opened the club in 1973, his rent was about $600 per month.... By 2004, Kristal was paying $19,000 a month. Last year his landlord...evicted Kristal and raised the rent to $65,000 a month. 'The Bowery is what the Meatpacking District was three years ago,' [the broker] said. 'With the opening of new retail tenants in [nearby] Avalon Bay, the level of luxury is getting very high. Within the next six months to year, the neighborhood will look more like [the West Village.] Within two years you'll see that almost all the retail businesses there will have changed.'"

VANISHING? Some very scary news--or, hopefully, "wildly unconfirmed rumor mongering," from Curbed : The low-rise buildings at 90, 86, and 84 East 10th are being bought by a developer to be razed for big-box construction. That block of buildings between Third and Fourth Avenues was the epicenter of the Abstract Expressionist movement in the 1950s. Willem DeKooning lived and painted where the Jillery gift shop is now. Franz Kline was there. The block was filled with avant-garde galleries like the Tanager (now Danal restaurant). Is this another piece of the East Village's soul being demolished for condos and Starbucks? DeKooning by Fred McDarrah

VANISHED: July 2007 Made a visit to Dick's the other day on my personal tour of the MTA's list of doomed buildings , slated to be snatched by eminent domain for the new Second Avenue subway line. Dick's shutter is down and it's down for good, according to a tip from Eater , and the phone's been disconnected. Photo from New York Magazine I guess that's it for Dick's, a good old gay dive bar, described by New York Magazine thusly: "With its concept-free amalgam of bar, pool table, jukebox and pinball machine, Dick's is to most East Village gay bars what Edith Piaf is to Cher."

Take a tour of 8th Avenue's porn shops before there's nothing left to see [Forgotten NY] See NYC pre-1996, before it all started going to hell, in the Midtown Y photo gallery show -- includes the work of Peter Hujar who captured the meatpacking district when it still packed meat, not fashion models, and the East Village when (in the words of Gary Indiana ) "it still had the narcoleptic desuetude of downtown Detroit" [NYPL] Take a surprising look at NYC from on high [kottke] Read about the nuptial love between two anti-Atlantic Yards activists -- the Voice reports and No Land Grab sets the record straight Immigrants an easy mark as Hotel Breslin's tenants get the boot [Chelsea Now]

RENOVATING I've been wondering and worried about what's happening at the Russian & Turkish baths on 10th Street. New York reports they're getting prettied up after 115 years. Which hopefully does not translate to "robbed of all that was wonderfully decrepit so the carpetbaggers of the new East Village can feel more spa-like when they schvitz." The Baths certainly got trendy in recent years, but let's pray they don't lose their steamy soul in the process. I'd hate to walk by and find the place covered in undulating glass. Here's a bit of history from the New York Times: Steaming to Serenity At the Turkish Baths by Douglas Martin May 10, 1991 Timelessness because nothing seems to change in the dank, dark room. People move up and down the tiers of seats, but somehow don't seem to really move at all. Some leave to jump in the cold water pool just outside, or the more civilized whirlpool. Others enter, gasping at first. The bare light bulbs se...

This past weekend may have been my last chance to enjoy a summer day at Coney Island before it falls to Thor’s mighty hammer. I visited my old favorite spots and one new spot, a little storefront wedged beneath the Cyclone. It used to house the two-headed baby in a jar, but now it’s the exhibition center of The Coney Island History Project . Charles Denson, native Coney Islander, historian, and author of Coney Island: Lost and Found was kind enough to give me a few minutes of his time. Denson with authentic Steeplechase horse We sat in a back room where the window looks directly onto the underbelly of the Cyclone’s tracks. Periodically, as we talked, the room would tremble Annie Hall-style as the cars roared down from overhead. I asked Denson what he thinks about what's happening to Coney -- and what he wishes would happen. Here’s what he told me: “Joe Sitt is holding Coney Island hostage. Historic preservation is not in his vocabulary. He’s a shopping mall developer. He's not...

VANISHING? Ruby’s Old Time Bar was opened by Rubin “Ruby” Jacobs just a few decades ago, yet it looks like it’s been on the boardwalk forever. Maybe that’s because Ruby had been there all his life, first selling knishes on the sand then operating Coney’s last bathhouses, Stauch’s, Claret’s, and Bushman’s. Souvenir ticket stubs and photographs from the bathhouses line the walls of Ruby’s bar, along with hundreds of photos from Coney’s glorious past. painting in photo by robert leach When you ask Coney people if they'll be there next year, they shrug and say, "Who knows?" A counterman at Gregory & Paul's responded by calling out, "Who knows, who knows, only the nose knows! Step right up for ice-cold beer here!" At Ruby's, I asked Frank the bartender if he thought they’d have another season on the beach. He told me, “Sometimes I get a good feeling and sometimes I get a bad feeling. Maybe we’ll get another year, but I wouldn’t put my money on...

VANISHED: 2005...or maybe 2004 photo credit: michael frucht Since 1935, Mrs. Stahl's served knishes under the El at the corner of Coney Island Ave and Brighton Beach. It's been awhile since I was last there and I went in search of it today. I asked a couple of older Jewish ladies if they knew where I could find it. "Oh, Mrs. Stahl's," said one wistfully, "I've been taking her since I was a little girl." "It's gone," said the second lady, "It closed two years ago." "No, it was three years ago." "Was it three? Well, it's a Blimpie now." "It's not a Blimpie. It's a Subway." "Blimpie, Subway," the second lady shrugged, waving her cigarette, "What's the difference?" Enough said.

This week, The New York Times City Room hosted a Q&A with Jerilou Hammett and Kingsley Hammett, the editors of The Suburbanization of New York: Is the World’s Greatest City Becoming Just Another Town? I asked a couple of questions and they answered. Jeremiah Moss: I run the blog Jeremiah’s Vanishing New York, which chronicles the changes that have been steamrolling New York for the past several years. Like global warming, this trend is not just the natural shifting the city has always managed, but a major demolition that is, in large part, irreversible. The fantasy that New York is not changing any more than it ever has is an illusion, just like the illusion that the global climate is not taking a cataclysmic nosedive. It’s a fantasy that people use to comfort themselves or to justify their way of life. People ask me what can be done to stop the overwhelming destruction of this city. I hope the editors of this book might offer some solutions. Mr. and Mrs. Hammett: Thanks for yo...

Planet of the Apes Sometimes, in my darkest moments with this vanishing city, when I am deep into grief over my lost love, I wish New York would just disappear completely. We all feel it from time to time, that collective, usually unconscious death wish that finds expression in those many New York destruction movies, from Planet of the Apes to this year's I Am Legend. I Am Legend Independence Day The terrible events of 9/11 roused within many of us an unspeakable guilt -- our most unacceptable repressed wish for this city was reified. We can deny it, but while we may not be conscious of it, the wish is there, deep below the surface. Or else those cathartic movies would not exist and could not make millions of dollars. Now we can watch this apocalyptic slideshow . I've been looking forward to reading Alan Weisman's The World Without Us for months. There is something oddly relieving to imagine our city empty of humans, as if in the wake of the apocalypse our d...

VANISHING? Not yet. my flickr "I been a barber since seven," Ercole Riccardelli tells me in his thick Neapolitan accent as he holds a buzzing set of clippers over my head, "I was short. My grandfather gave me a step. I stood on it and put on the soap with the brush. When I was fourteen, I shaved the customers." He's 84 now and plans to live as long as his grandfather, a man who made it to 99 (and 7 months) by never once seeing a doctor and by drinking a glass of Brioschi with lemon every morning then smoking a pipe while he watched the Naples fishermen fish before he opened his barber shop for the day. photo by axlotl If you go to the Clover Barbershop in Park Slope, be prepared to spend some time. Mr. Riccardelli moves very, very slowly . But his lines are straight and his hand is steady on the razor blade. When he finishes the hot-foam shave, he slaps your face with Osage oil and fans you coolingly with his towel. There aren't many places left ...

VANISHED Painting by Sharon Florin I feel a bit of ambivalence memorializing a chain store here, but Tower was sort of special. Quotes Wikipedia: "The store in Greenwich Village was famous in the 1980s for selling albums of European New Wave bands not yet popular in the U.S. and was a noted hangout for teenagers from throughout the metropolitan area." Now Racked reports the 4th Street site will become a Toys R Us.

VANISHING? In yesterday's Daily News , Charles Denson, author of "Coney Island: Lost and Found" and director of the Coney Island History Project , writes about the fight Coney has fought to survive over the years: "Power broker Robert Moses declared Coney an urban renewal site in 1949, opening the door for Mayor John Lindsay's infamous high-rise housing projects. In 1966, Donald Trump's father, Fred Trump, demolished historic Steeplechase Park for a housing project that was never built. And in a 2004 court case, then-Mayor Rudy Giuliani was finally forced to admit under oath that he had ordered the demolition of the derelict Thunderbolt Roller Coaster after publicly denying that he had been responsible." Now Coney is threatened again and this may be the last season we have to enjoy it. Who knows what the future of Coney will be? It all hangs in the balance. One day, it's being leveled for a Vegas-style nightmare , the next, it may be saved . (See Kin...

VANISHING? (not any time soon) According to the Historic Districts Council and the Daily News , "Brooklyn's northern waterfront has been placed on America's 11 Most Endangered Historic Places list.... Maritime properties that stretch from the burned-down Greenpoint Terminal Market to the Brooklyn Army Terminal, where Elvis was shipped off to the (Cold) war, are in danger of being overrun by development.... 'It sounds the alarm for Brooklyn's historic district, which is disappearing faster than you can say Domino Sugar.'" The Domino Sugar refinery has been "saved," if you can call luxury condo-minimizing salvation. Lost City and Brownstoner report on the slim chance it could become an art museum. So I thought I'd visit Brooklyn's waterfront by starting at the Army Terminal, which The Municipal Art Society of New York says is threatened. Seems the best way to explore freely is to pose as an Elvis fan--a memorial poster to the King'...

VANISHING: August 31, 2007 This Park Slope indie may not have been around for eons, but the demise of any good used bookshop is cause for sorrow. This time it wasn't rent issues, but personal reasons. As Brooklyn Paper reports, the owner was hoping for a buyer. A recent visit to the store confirmed that no buyer has materialized and the store will be closed August 31. Brooklyn bloggers like OTBKB , BIB , and Bklyn Stories , mourn the loss. This after I just finished reading Paul Auster's Brooklyn Follies , which takes place in and around a Park Slope used bookshop. If anyone worries, like I do, about what might take the store's place, I think you'll be relieved. It won't be a Starbucks or a Pinkberry or a bank. This weekend the cashier told me it will be a vegan restaurant. That's not so terrible.

VANISHING Went out to Brooklyn today to visit the Atlantic Yards footprint, the area blighted by Bloomberg and handed to Ratner on a silver platter. Had a beer at Freddy's Bar & Backroom , the one-time speakeasy and Dodger-fan hangout , now a beloved dive bar fighting to survive demolition . Enjoyed watching Donald O'Finn's video montage of Busby Berkeley girls and burlesque dancers over a cold pint, then headed out to tour the footprint. The area is quiet, desolate. In one tenement window, a doomed woman dozed in front of her television. The lovely terracotta Atlantic Art Building looks empty; most, if not all, of the condo owners have already sold out to Ratner. The Ward Bakery building was covered with plywood, prepped for demolition, but its waves peeked out. Guess this petition didn't save it. Everything there is to say about this evil development is already being thoroughly said by Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn , Atlantic Yards Report , Fans for Fair ...

VANISHED: Yes...and then No The Greenwich Village Shopsin's that struck fear and joy in the hearts of many closed last year. Calvin Trillin pretty much said it all about Kenny Shopsin and his restaurant in a 2002 New Yorker essay. Here's my favorite excerpt from the Trillin piece: Defying the odds, Shopsin's reopened (in a smaller size) last month in the Essex Street Market . Today's positive New York Times review warns away the weak of heart (and the stupid): ...some aspects of the place, like Mr. Shopsin’s brand of extemporaneous philosophizing, will sit better with some than others. Holding court from a chair in the hall outside his stall on a recent Thursday morning and addressing his comments to no one in particular, he asked, “Did you hear that Whole Foods sold out of those ‘I Am Not a Plastic Bag’ bags in 15 minutes?" "I guess people really aren’t that smart,” he glumly summarized before rousing himself to return to the kitchen.

(This post has been updated) "Yunnie" stands for Young Urban Narcissist . An obvious play on the outmoded "yuppie," this neologism was my earlier attempt to grasp a mass cultural shift currently generating and feeding on tremendous change in New York City--and much of the country. While "yuppie" was aimed at professionals, describing people of a certain socioeconomic bracket, "yunnie" described a characterological type. I originally introduced the yunnie in August of 2007. Since then, my ideas about the narcissistic personality and its effect on New York City have evolved. It's no longer a term I use, but you'll still find it scattered among old posts. I've since become interested in the connection between wealth, greed, and materialism and malignant narcissism or sociopathy--the absence of empathy--illustrated in the work of Paul Piff and many other researchers. What I called the yunnie seems to be a psychopathic personality ...

VANISHING AP photo of 95-year-old photographer Editta Sherman By now, we've all heard about how the artist tenants of Carnegie Hall are being pushed out. The New Yorker has a great Talk of the Town piece about the people who live in the Carnegie Hall Studio Towers, "one Manhattan commonplace: a band of artist-occupants whose tenancy is venerable, tenuous, and probably doomed." This week, Chelsea Now reports on a lesser-known locale, The Hotel Breslin, where the same thing is happening. Says one of the tenants, "We’re under siege, here." When did we declare war on our artists? What city is this? New York, I hardly know you.

VANISHING Save the Deli shared this story from the New York Times about a recent panel discussion on "Every aspect of the Jewish delicatessen — from the declining popularity of kishka to the rise of online sales to the gentrification of the Lower East Side" A few snippets from the Times article: Food historian Joel Denker, author of The World on a Plate : "You find this sort of yeasty combination of intellectuals, writers, leftists, sitting together over tea and cottage cheese and fruit, talking about the issues of the day at a place like the Garden Cafeteria ." photo from my katz's flickr set Alan Dell, owner of Katz’s Delicatessen : "''When the Second Avenue Deli closed, we kept getting calls: ‘Are you open? You’re still open?’ The original rumor started when the show ‘Cats’ closed years ago.' Mr. Dell said that rising rents were the greatest challenge in keeping the store open –- not to mention the rising price of meat." photo credit J...