Vanishing New York Backup

You must see "Zipper" at the NYC Documentary Fest--a heartbreaking and enraging story about greed, politics, and destruction in modern-day Coney Island. [ DocNYC ] Gimme Gimme Records is gone . Here's the last letter they received, from a distraught customer. [ EVG ] About that random piece of High Line in Yvonne's 1980s photos...it was over Jane Street. [ FNY ] On trucks full of firewood and ice . And icepicks. And stab wounds. [ WIC ] Playland Arcade , the wonderful Coney ruin, is currently under demolition. [ ATZ ] Going back to the Gas Station , the "former gas station that turned into a junkies' shooting gallery that turned into an art-installation-cum-performance space over on Avenue B," now a Duane Reade. [ FP ] A new fro-yo joint is coming to Park Slope, and the locals share their thoughts: WTF. ANOTHER ONE? It's better than an effing cell phone store [crossed out]. We should get a Sprint Store. History on the neon s...

In August, we first learned that Colony Music would be vanishing after 60 years in Times Square. Their landlord hiked the rent to $5 million . Now Colony is gone. All the sheet music, the CDs, the memorabilia is gone. A reader sends in the following snapshots. The windows are empty. The neon lights are off. And the inside is gutted. And what's coming to replace those 60 years of history?

Every so often, someone scans a bunch of old photos of the lost city and puts them up on Flickr--and that is a glorious day. When Yvonne B. got in touch with me and shared the photos she took of the Meatpacking District in the 1980s , I got excited. And she had more . Now they're all on Flickr . The photos mostly span the East Village, Greenwich Village, and the High Line (with whole lost chunks of 14th Street ). Some of my favorites from the more than 100 images include: A burned-out car on Crosby Street, and the crapped-out corner of 2nd Ave. and 5th St. A lost theater on 2nd Ave. and 4th--does anyone know the name of it? A mural on 8th St. at 1st Ave., along the side of what was once the St. Mark's Bar & Grill. Rescued Estates, before the "Crazy Landlord" rented the place to The Bean coffee shop. And "Mambo Mouth" in the days before STOMP took over the Orpheum Theater on 2nd and 7th. Here's a spindly, stand-alone ...

A few years ago, I looked at the survivors of Carmine Street . It seemed at the time like this little stretch of the Village had been forgotten by development. Of course, that could not last forever. Change is barreling in with the distasteful news of an IHOP coming to Carmine Street (the broker who made the deal said, " People don’t even know where Carmine Street is — yet. We’ll fix that "). And now we hear that Unoppressive, Non-Imperialist Bargain Books is struggling--and doing what it takes to stay alive in this unfriendly atmosphere for bookstores and other independent businesses. Reader Felix sent in a shot of the bookstore--now sharing its space with a Metro PCS to make ends meet. Wrote Felix, "This can’t be a good sign, and this is one of my favorite book stores." For the next 26 days, the bookshop's owners team up with Lucky Ant --and with you--to help them stay strong on Carmine. Says the press release, " Jim Drougas and his wife Indiana...

At 837-843 Washington Street, on the corner of 13th, demolition has begun on what once held the last working meatpacking house in the center of the Meatpacking District. The space will soon command rents of $600 a square foot . today: the plywood is up 2011: No signs, street art + small-wheel cyclist 2007: Signs on the awning for active business 837 Washington was sold back in 2008 by GOP leader James Ortenzio, after he pleaded guilty to tax evasion. He had been renting out the refrigerated warehouses here to meat businesses for well below market rate, keeping them alive. Not very long ago, you could still see the movement of meat from the building's open doors, through which men labored at stainless steel tables. 2007 : Wooden palettes, a sign of work being done 2011: Graffiti replaced by street art today: workers bust a hole through the bricks GVSP published a history of the building and images of its future. It was built in 1938 and housed throughout i...

When Yvonne B. commented on my post about Ivy Brown and the Triangle Building , I wrote to her and asked if she might share some of her memories of life as a young transgender woman in the Meatpacking District in the 1980s. Very generously, she sent along not only her memories, but also a group of wonderful photos. The following is all Yvonne. I didn't live in the Meatpacking area. I just went there cause of the Vault club. I wasn't one of the regular street walkers, I was mostly a loner who at times would get picked up by passing guys who cruised looking for transsexual hookers. I wasn't dressed sexy like the other girls. I was a punk t-girl, but some guys thought it was a cute style, so they took me. I needed money to live. I looked quite young for my age and I believe I attracted a maybe more perv type of guy, maybe pedophile type. They were nasty. I met them in Times Square, as well. One night a guy drove up to me and he looked just like a teacher I had in school....

This past spring, alongside the High Line at 10th Avenue and 17th Street, the old brick building that houses Artichoke Basille's Pizza was looking desolate, the windows empty or boarded up. I wondered what was happening there. Spring 2012 On a more recent visit, what happened has become clear. From the High Line, you can see into the open windows--the plywood is gone and the apartments have been gut renovated. Today The building is now being marketed as " The Highline Flats ." Per the listing, these are: "Newly renovated Pre-War Flats in the hottest section in West Chelsea. Steps from The Highline...Make the Highline Flats your new home in the city." The open house is this week. From the bits I can put together, somewhere between 2007 and 2009, the building owner changed from 114 Tenth Ave Assoc. to the aptly named Highline Properties, LLC . Soon after, complaints to the Department of Buildings began to multiply, becoming more and more int...

Reader Chris writes in with a report on a flyer circulating around Chelsea calling for the closure of The Blue Store and Rainbow Station, two adult gay shops on 8th Avenue. Chris writes, "I was walking my dog around on 8th Ave. between 20 and 21 when I saw a bunch of flyers calling for the neighborhood to get the Blue Store and the Rainbow Store closed down – because of children! This is the same corner with the Manhunt ad which had local mommies in a rage." "This is clearly the work of local mommies who moved to a gay neighborhood and now are trying to de-gay it and completely familify and Disney-fy Chelsea. And these mommies who are so concerned for their children’s safety have 3-dollar-an-hour nannies take care of them most of the time, and then are on their phones texting when they are with their children." photo from Elvert Barnes' flickr photo from Senor Blancito's flickr Chris adds, "Those stores have been there for a goo...

Recently, DNA reported that Spanish restaurant El Faro has been closed indefinitely, "as its owner tries to raise more than $80,000 to pay city fines and other expenses." The city found mice in the 85-year-old place--they also want El Faro to be renovated to meet the city's standards. El Faro opened in 1927 , when the Village was full of Spanish sailors, and has been surviving at the edge of the Meatpacking District ever since. It's got that Last Mohican look about it. I've gone in a few times, worried that it would not last much longer, that it would soon be targeted in the Bloombergian cross-hairs. A newcomer, I was always welcomed and felt as if I'd stumbled into an older New York, where everyone knows everyone, and they all have a dusty, slightly patrician air. Nothing this warm and welcoming could be allowed to remain in the new New York. Not here on this plot of prime real estate. El Faro is proud of the fact that it has never changed. On the w...

What happens to a New York City landmark after it's been gutted and dropped, after it's lain vacant for months, after it's been forgotten? Well, if it's the month of October, it gets turned into a pop-up Halloween costume store. Opened in 1929, the Jefferson Market closed in 2008 under dire financial circumstances. Said the owner at the time, “We were running it like a mom-and-pop when we shouldn’t have been." In 2009, it stopped being a mom and pop when it re-opened under ownership of Gristede's and turned into something like a " Jeffertedes ." That failed, the place shuttered in 2011, and it has sat empty and "for rent" ever since. Today it's filled with Halloween paraphernalia. Few traces of the original market remain. The temporary tenants have cleverly used the Butcher Shop signage as gruesome decor. And if you're looking for a plus-size Cupcake Girl costume, this is the place.

In recent years, Manhattan has lost the last of its LGBT bookstores. Now The Bureau of General Services - Queer Division is looking to bring a queer independent bookstore and event space to Manhattan. I asked co-founder Greg Newton about their plans. What is your mission in bringing a queer bookshop and event space to NYC? Why now? The idea for the project began last fall when my partner Donnie Jochum and I were walking near the former location of A Different Light, and we asked ourselves: "When did A Different Light close? And when did Oscar Wilde close?" Then it dawned on us that there were no gay bookstores left in Manhattan. "We should do it!" That was our initial response. But we wanted it to be a queer bookstore, not a gay bookstore. Of course, there is Bluestockings, the activist bookstore on Allen St., which has a lot of queer titles and events. Bluestockings is a wonderful resource, and we hope to collaborate with them. I volunteered there over the...