Vanishing New York Backup

The Lucky Cheng's building has had a wonderfully weird history --so what's moving in next? "the darn best ribs, brisket, pulled pork, and wings you've ever had." [ EVG ] The sad, sad, miserable reality of what has come to replace H&H Bagels. [ WSR ] In Williamsburg, brand-spanking newcomers complain about a pair of 50-year-old record stores: "owners of the shops...insisted they have done nothing wrong and that they never received complaints until a recent batch of new young people started arriving on the street. 'How would you feel if somebody came to your block and started telling you what to do?" [ DNA ] Enjoy this 1969 film of Kenneth Koch teaching poetry to kids at PS61 in Alphabet City. [ OMFS ] Night on Orchard Check out the latest Walker in the City. [ WIC ] Enjoy the Brooklyn Holiday Book Fair this weekend. [ FB ] 1973 NYC on film. [ Gothamist ] A new video game teaches girls how to become Upper East Side socialites: ...

On a bus ride through Harlem (Manhattan Ave and 116th), a piece of the past glimpsed from the dusty window. An awning wrecked and ripped to reveal a hidden sign for a forgotten grocery store. The rusted Coca-Cola logo. The clicky metal letters. Underneath the city, another city awaits. Camera to the window--and gone.

I've been thinking about Yvonne B's forlorn and ghostly shot of the corner of 17th Street and 10th Avenue in the 1980s. There's the abandoned High Line and a gritty little luncheonette, alone with a single-story garage. There are no people. And here's my shot of the same corner today. The luncheonette is now a Comme des Garcons "concept store." The High Line is renovated and full of tourists enjoying the views from what they call " 10th Avenue Square ." The garage has been demolished for a luxury condo tower with an Equinox fitness center on the first floor. The streets below are not unpopulated--there are a couple of people making cell-phone calls, two women pushing a shopping cart, and a Skyliner bus full of tourists. The first scene brings to mind some lines from " Minority Report ," a sort of love poem to America by John Updike: But it is you, really you I think of: your nothing streetcorners your ugly eateries your dear b...

A little "then and now" on West 18th Street. Here is 461-463 West 18th Street, photographed by Berenice Abbott in 1938 (via NYPL ). And here is the same address today. The bar and restaurant is still a restaurant, now the back end of La Lunchonette. The junk shop has been replaced with a luxury condo. The crummy little house is now a townhouse that rents for $6,400 a month. "Harry Potter should live here!" crows the listing --but the "super needy need not apply." It appears, in photos, to be combined with the loft space next door. It's hard to say that the people are different, but we know they are. In each photo, there is a couple, a man and a woman. Imagine that they live in the little house, then and now. In 1938, the wife follows her husband to the street. He's going out to work on the docks and he forgot his lunch pail. She will spend the day in the crummy house, with the wooden boards nailed across the first-floor wi...

Sarge's Delicatessen has been ravaged by a three-alarm fire. Reports the Daily News this morning, "The blaze started in Sarge's Delicatessen Restaurant on Third Ave. between E. 36th and E. 37th Sts. around 6:50 p.m. and spread with vicious speed throughout the four-story building." There were minor injuries to firefighters, no deaths. "More than 150 firefighters battled the blaze for 90 minutes." As for Sarge's, "The restaurant sustained some severe damage and will not be open for a while." All photos: June 2012 Family-owned Sarge's Deli has been around since 1964. On their website, they proudly announce that they are "the only deli in New York that currently cures their own corned beef and pastrami on premises." They don't get the attention that other survivors of the Great Delicatessen Die-off get, like Katz's or Carnegie. I didn't know they existed until this past spring, when I wandered by (I ra...

Some good news has come out of the tragedy for the block of 9th Avenue between 17th and 18th--that collection of small, long-time businesses evicted by the Stonehenge Group to make room for what will probably be a combo Chase bank and frozen-yogurt joint or some other awfulness. The New Barber Shop was forced to shutter last month, but barber Willie has survived to scissor again. Willie has opened his own shop, under his own name. Thanks to reader Richie Cohen for sharing this photo and the good news. Willie's Barber Shop is now open at 235 West 18th Street, between 7th and 8th Avenues. Bonus: The business it replaced was a realtor's office. Be sure to go in, get a haircut, and give your good wishes to Willie! Previously: New Barber Shop Death of a Block 3 Death of a Block 2 Death of a Block Saving 9th Avenue Sweet Banana Candy Store New China Chelsea Liquors

Some years ago, on the southwest corner of 14th St. and 3rd Ave. , above Disco Donut, there was a place called Carmelita's Reception House. Walter Grutchfield at 14to42 writes, "I'm not sure what it was, but Carmelita's Reception House dates from the late 1970s and derived from Carmelita for Bridal, Corp., (bridal gowns and such?) from the mid-1960s." Lori Horvitz recalls in her non-fiction story " The Last Days of Disco Donut ," "I thought Carmelita's was a massage parlor that doubled as a house of prostitution. Only years later did I find out it was a legitimate bar that frequently held parties for gay women ." Filling out the mystery, reader Yvonne B. sent in the above ad for "Girl + Girl" at Carmelita's, and we got an informative comment to my post on 14th and 3rd from "SF," who writes: "If anyone cares to read more about Lite Lounge at Carmelita's contact me. I rented Carmelita's...

Last week we heard from the decorator of the new Bill's , formerly the wonderful Bill's Gay 90s. Now we hear from an anonymous tipster who was at the new Bill's this weekend for their soft opening. He sends in this photo of the sign being removed, on which he writes, "The destruction is complete." He also offers this review of the new place: "I went there for drinks on Friday night for their soft open. If the flagship stores of Pottery Barn and Ann Taylor Loft had passionless sex and produced offspring, the result would look a lot like the decor inside the new Bill's. Absolute abomination. They replaced actual authentic for fake authentic. And the drinks cost 14 bucks--up significantly." Previously: Bill's Vanishes Bill's Carted Away Bill's Gay 90s Bill's in Boardwalk Empire

As another Toll Brothers' tower gets ready to rise on 22nd St. and 3rd Ave., a (presumed) local has responded with a bit of pointed graffiti. What's Going On Here? Armed with a Magic Marker, the graffitist has line-edited the explanation, and remarks, "you got a lot of nerve thinking people will believe your bullshit!"   The graffitist continues around the corner, remarking on affordability and inequality. And here's what's coming-- the thing that ate Gramercy , a mountain of glass enveloping a small brick tenement. It is celebrated, in the renderings, by striving, smiling people laden with shopping bags and briefcases. The people of New York. More familiar every day.

You can own a piece of Lucky Cheng's. As you may already know, the East Village Lucky Cheng's has moved to Times Square. Now they're selling off some of the drag bar's relics before it turns into the next hip whatever lounge . There are many booths and chairs, tables, and bar/kitchen equipment up for grabs. But the best item has to be the $150 "Tiki canoe." God only knows what went on in that boat. What I want to know is: Are there any artifacts leftover from the sex club days ? Or does that canoe go way back? (Seriously, click this link .) See more on the sale at Flickr and Lucky Cheng's Facebook page .

The New York Times recently published " Making It Clubby ," an interview with the decorator of the new Bill's, formerly Bill's Gay 90s. (The place opens next week .) A reader also sent in a bunch of photos some weeks back showing the state of poor, old Bill's in between the gutting and the redo. So, photos interspersed with quotes from the article: "Her specialty is taking a space with New York history and breathing life into it by buffing up old surfaces and adding cool touches." "the five-story 1890s brownstone had gone shabby in recent years, and the taps slowed to a trickle before the place closed nine months ago. 'It wasn’t living up to its potential,' said the decorator." "'Often with restaurants, they don’t have a long life,' Ms. Sharpe said, taking a seat in a brown leather banquette upstairs. 'My job is to give them a classic aspect so people will come back.'" Let's remember the rea...

Two weeks since Hurricane Sandy hit and the malaise hangs on. The atmosphere itself seems saturated with it. I walked through the usually busy streets on Saturday and everything felt muffled, wrapped in gauze, quiet and restrained. It felt like the feeling before a storm, when strange things happen to the air pressure and everyone sits back, waiting for the skies to drop. I wondered how the rest of New York City and surrounding areas were feeling. What's the mood out there? So I asked on Facebook and Twitter, and I talked to people, and here's what they said. all the words: the bigger the word, the more people said it "Tired" is the predominant feeling --represented by the largest type in this word cloud (I collapsed synonyms like "exhausted" into it, as with others). This tiredness is a tiredness that seems to go on and on, for those hit hardest and for those barely impacted. Most of us are tired. Curiously, no one said they feel angry. They're...

In 2007, we first heard that a string of buildings on East 10th Street would be razed for big-box construction . These buildings between Third and Fourth Avenues were once the epicenter of the Abstract Expressionist movement in the 1950s. They were not torn down.  In 2008, we got word of more destruction --the corner was shuttered and gutted for an eventual teardown to make room for a luxury hotel. That still hasn't happened. But there is some action on the block. Scaffolding recently came down off 84 E. 10th -- its bricks have been transformed into glass. Containing an art gallery for many years, part of the 10th Street gallery "scene," this was once the home of the Off-Bowery Theater, where the New York Poets Theatre performed in the early 1960s, featuring Diane Di Prima, LeRoi Jones, and Michael McLure. before photo via EV Grieve The realtor's listing begs for a restaurant, or if not a restaurant, then a wine bar, gallery, fitness studio, or salon/...

VANISHED The Village Chess Shop has been at 230 Thompson Street since 1972. And now it's gone. A tipster sent in these photos of the empty windows and the "for sale: everything" signs. "They were cleaning out everything on Sunday and this is the empty storefront today," writes the tipster, who heard from the management company: "They were evicted." The Chess Shop's Facebook page has officially announced: " Chess Shop is now closed however, it was a great 40 year run but while we attempted to preserve it, The Chess Shop became more of a curiosity or portrait than viable retail environment ...Indeed, those who thoughtfully bid us farewell in the final days, admittedly had never set foot in the place lol...The Chess Shop lives on though. We'll be opening several smaller different type of sites for play, learning, competition and laughter...stay tuned." photo: New York Magazine I don't know how to play chess, but I...

Reader Steve Fitch recently put together his slides of ghost signs from across the city, all taken in 1997, then he scanned them and got them up on Flickr for us to enjoy. Some of my favorites: "Cooped Up? Feelin' Low? Enjoy a Movie Today." The best. A lovely pawnbrokers' shop. And our lost Amato Opera House--the mural vanished when NYU put up their dorm alongside it. Check out Steve's Flickr page for many more.

It's Monday and many of us are getting "back to normal" after the hurricane, while many others have a long way to go to normal. You've seen the photos and the news footage: the buckled houses, homes sinking as if into quicksand, the boardwalks ripped up and scattered like busted piano keys, cars leapfrogging each other down the streets. You've seen the East River lapping, almost gently, over its barriers, and then the floodwaters that swamped Avenue C. You saw footage of the Con Edison plant on 14th Street explode into sick, green flashes of light like the coming of the alien invasion. You've seen the post-apocalyptic devastation in the Rockaways, like the bombing of Dresden, and the misery in Staten Island. And you've seen the people crying, digging through Dumpsters for food, begging Bloomberg to do something. Maybe you are one of those people. Maybe you're among them, helping. Or maybe you spent the night looting their homes. This week we...