Vanishing New York Backup

Beleaguered Houston Wall now adds security guard detail to surveillance cameras--creating its own private "Ring of Steel"? [ EVG ] There are now over 1,000 signatures on the petition to save 35 Cooper Square --and last night the Asian Pub moved out to make room for whatever is to come. Thanks to Sally Young for these shots: At last Friday's rally to save 35 Cooper Square . [ SNY ] Tonight: Celebrate Ray's birthday with burlesque and more surprises. [ NSC ] The wonderful Nom Wah reopens: "The goal was to modernize the restaurant without losing its history or original appeal... So we changed what we had to, but kept what we could." [ NYDN ] Inside the vacant spaces next to Mars Bar . [ EVG ] Where to dine in peace without the plague of piped-in music. [ GAF ] Mapping Gowanus with big silver balloons. [ PMA ] Third subway rat video surfaces--not for rat lovers. [ Gothamist ] In Greenpoint, they just toss the dead vermin out the window. [ NYS ]

In 2008, I posted a little bit on the Village East cinema at 12th and 2nd Ave. Now the Museum of the City of New York's wonderful digital collection offers us this shot, showing the cinema when it was the Yiddish Folks Theater in 1930. Wurtz Brothers, 1930 Close-up details show a cluster of businesses and their heavy, dazzling signage--a Russian restaurant and an optometrist's office with its all-seeing eyes, those outsized glasses bringing to mind Dr. Eckleberg in Gatsby's valley of ashes. Today, in their places under the archways, there's the cinema's ticket window, a locksmith shop, and some closed doors. Wurtz Brothers, 1930 On the corner of 2nd and 12th, there was once a cigar shop. This corner is now incorporated into the cinema. I imagine all this space was taken when the theater was turned into a multiplex and they needed the room for movie screens and seats. Wurtz Brothers, 1930 The NYPL archives has a 1936 shot that shows the Hebrew letters on the marque...

The San Gennaro Feast continues despite the opposition --with some changes: "This year there will be no karaoke, no booths playing/selling CDs, no mafia t-shirts for sale, and no Dunk the Clown." What's wrong with mafia t-shirts? [ Villager ][via Curbed ] Reminder to rally to save 35 Cooper Square-- today . [ BB ] More East Village 1987 . [ EVG ] Very old snow scenes. [ BBs ] Penistrator goes even bigger. [ Curbed ] Coney snowmen on the beach. [ ATZ ]

Yesterday, the Times took a look at the new Fedora and the expanding "Little Wisco" of Greenwich Village, a "self-perpetuating machine" in the words of the new Fedora's owner. We've discussed this Wisconsinization of the Village before and how it has come to exemplify the current trend of newcomers longing to recreate their hometowns in New York City. Ever curious about this trend, I look to the Little Wisco phenomenon for answers. As we learned from The Feast , the new Fedora features a cocktail called the Black Squirrel Old Fashioned, an homage to the bartender's hometown of Reedsburg, Wisconsin, where the Black Squirrel Lounge is the "hip bar...where everybody goes and hangs out" at the America's Best Value Inn-Voyageur Inn and Conference Center. I searched out the America's Best Value-Voyageur Inn and Conference Center to see if I could understand more about this whole phenomenon. View from the parking lot "Fun and ...

Recently, the Nolitan attack against the San Gennaro Feast kicked into high gear. As DNAInfo reported, "NoLita residents and merchants seeking to rid their neighborhood of the annual San Gennaro Feast scored a victory last week when Community Board 2 penned a letter to the city's permit office urging them to cut off the 85-year-old festival at Kenmare Street, the de facto border between Little Italy and NoLita." 1930s Nolita, of course, did not exist until it was invented, carved from the body of Little Italy by the Gods of Real Estate in 1996 . Coincidentally (?), that same year, Giuliani took "the spirit out of the festival" with a City Hall crackdown ostensibly aimed at organized crime. The die was cast. Nolita didn't become a powerful lobbying force until the past few years, when its massing troops set out to destroy whatever remained of vanishing Little Italy. Just look at what they did to Elizabeth Street --the forces of upscale retail are fierce. S...

Have we finally lost the 41-year-old Pussycat Lounge ? "Score another one for the white-washers." [ Grub ] "Nolita" asserts its power over Little Italy--aim to squeeze the 85-year-old San Gennaro Feast until it dies. Pricey handbags must be sold! [ DNA ] A photographic look back at the East Village of 1987 . [ EVG ] Today in Washington Square Park : A hoarder at the National Arts Club. [ Gothamist ] The Knickerbocker door returns. [ LC ] Existential messages appear on subway signage. [ RS ] Elaine's apartment on the market. [ CR ] I like a deli cat . [ EVC ]

It was known, simply, as The Street. Arnold Shaw, its main historian, wrote in 52nd St. , "If you flagged a taxi in NYC and asked to be taken to The Street, you would be driven, without giving a number or an avenue, to 52d between Fifth and Sixth avenues." William Gottlieb , 1948, looking east from 6th It began as a row of speakeasies, which turned into jazz clubs that then evolved into burlesque houses. The speakeasies got their start, Shaw tells us, in 1926 when the city lifted residential restrictions on the brownstones here. Businesses moved in-- including Jack and Charlie's 21 club --and The Street exploded through the 1930s. NYPL, 1940 Leon & Eddie's was the wild star of the block, but at any one of the clubs, you could see and hear the greatest of the greats-- Billie Holiday, Charlie Parker, Ella Fitzgerald . Photographer William Gottlieb captured many of them. In 1937, Life Magazine took an illustrated walk from one end of 52nd Street to the o...

Many commenters agree Bloomberg paying a $115,000 salary to a 27-year-old Facebook guru is ludicrous. I add the question: So whatever happened to our Bed Bug Czar? [ CR ] Sign the petition to designate 35 Cooper Square a landmark and save it from demolition. And then go to the rally this Friday. [ EVG ] "Can we please stop bemoaning the loss of 'edgy' New York ?" [ RS ] Burlesque coming to Red Hook. [ Eater ] Check out more scenes of lost Times Square from Jerry Rio. [ COS ] Remembering punk at the Paradise Garage in 1978. [ Stupefaction ] New Fedora : packed, mobbed, reserved seats at the bar, expensive sweaters. [ Eater ]

In my recent research on Leon & Eddie's of lost 52nd Street, I came upon the incredible Gottlieb Collection of jazz photos on flickr. William Gottlieb, says the Library of Congress' note, "was both a notable jazz journalist and a self-taught photographer who captured the personalities of jazz musicians and told their stories with his camera and typewriter." Many of the photos here come from 52nd Street, back when it was known as "Swing Street." William Gottlieb: Toots Thielemans, 1948 In the collection you'll find many shots of the greats, including Billie Holiday and Ella Fitzgerald, but it's the faces of the forgotten and lesser known that I find most exciting. Like Harry "The Hipster" Gibson , the man who claimed to have originally coined the term "hipster" between 1939 and 1945. It was his stage name when 52nd was his musical home. Notes Wikipedia, "His career went into a tailspin in 1947, when his song 'Who Pu...

What was the greatest New York year ever? [ NYM ] Rally to save 35 Cooper on Friday 1/28. [ EVG ] Could the Carnegie Deli be closing? [ Eater ] The rent at Ray's must be paid--go buy a beignet. [ NSC ] Houston Wall appears in a Scorsese film of 1967. [ BB ] Some Long Island people are paying $175,000 to replicate Carrie Bradshaw's closet in their home. Go ahead and weep. [ Racked ] Gerritsen Beach blog brouhaha goes big news. [ NYT ] Alex puts names to some of those hardcore kid faces. [ FP ] Check out new--and old-- music from the Slum Goddess. [ SG ] Walking from Williamsburg to Bed-Stuy . [ FNY ]

Last week I posted about old New York City menus , and one of them, featuring a topless lady, came from Leon and Eddie's on 52nd Street back when the block between 5th and 6th was known as Swing Street for its many jazz clubs, and later as Strip Street when the jazz clubs became striptease joints, creating a mecca of burlesque (more on that in a post to come). Andreas Feininger, via Getty Most popular during World War II, Leon & Eddie's (said, but not in the club's signage, with an apostrophe S) was beloved by servicemen. Sailors and soldiers, along with civilians, were invited onstage to play "Boomps-A-Daisy" with the chorus girls , butting their hips together for a cheap thrill. Boomps-A-Daisy, LIFE In 1939, Time magazine said of the place, "Its ferocious Apache dance is the next thing to murder, but the crowd really goes to hear Proprietor Eddie Davis, whose smutty jokes and songs like Myrtle Isn't Fertile Any More are subtle as a burgl...

Hideous Jumbotron hotel promises to spawn more like itself on the Bowery, aka "epicenter of cool." [ EVG ] See Schmatta , a history of the Garment District at IFC 1/25. [ IFC ] Zenith, a Brooklyn "Blade Runner," plays at KGB. [ LM ] New Coney investor to bring healthy Luna Park Café to boardwalk and pay " tribute to the long history of Coney Island with memorabilia and tributes from local residents and visitors from around the world." So...they tear down the real thing and put up a fake. [ ATZ ] Billy Leroy can't sell real subway signs , but this guy can make and sell replicas. [ NYT ] A glimpse back at Dave's Luncheonette on Canal. [ D40 ] On the Bowery: " Free Stuff, No Bedbugs! " [ BR ] "Gene-morphing bedbugs now virtually indestructible." [ RS ]

Reader John Lee sent in a link to an evocative collection of photos from the days of New York's 1980s hardcore scene. Blogger Street Carnage got the shots from photographer Brooke Smith--as he says, the actress "best known for her role as the woman down in the well in Silence of the Lambs ." photo: Brooke Smith Brooke Smith also has a place in my heart for playing my favorite character in the fantastic movie Series 7 , a little-seen reality show spoof that's well worth checking out. She's a gun-toting pregnant lady who does a splendid performance to Joy Division's "Love Will Tear Us Apart." Need I say more? photo: Brooke Smith Anyway, here are a few of Brooke's shots to whet your appetite ( click to see them all ), including this one of the northwest corner of St. Mark's and Avenue A --a very different time in the East Village. photo: Brooke Smith ...and the obligatory Google Streetview "today" shot, complete with a stroller. And l...