Vanishing New York Backup

From blogger Cathryn Swan, check out Tales of Washington Square Park , "your official guide to that historic park by the editor of the Washington Square Park Blog." [ Bgirl ] The Yippie Museum Cafe is closing this weekend. [ EVG ] Luxury businesses cannot afford Soho anymore. [ NYO ] "the MTA will vacate its headquarters buildings in Midtown Manhattan by the end of next year and award a long-term lease to a developer expected to demolish the buildings and redevelop the premier location with modern Class A offices, a hotel, residential tower, or a mixture of uses." [ MTA ] The glory of 1980s Staten Island . [ Slate ] Take a walk on the Crack Tracks of the Bronx. [ JKM ] A Brooklyn alley is being revived as a hipster market --and somehow Vesuvio got stuck in there. [ NYDN ] Say goodbye to those little metal tags at the Met. [ NYT ] Looking at Stonewall 's neon signs. [ NYN ] A sad farewell to Blarney Cove . [ GL ] A sad shot of what's...

That little block of mom and pops, on 9th Avenue between 17th and 18th Streets, is being gutted. Reader Brad sends in a couple of photos and writes, "They have removed all signage and even kicked the Subway out to create one massive vacant space ripe for a bank and a Duane Reade!" We've been following this story since it began back in 2008. Here's a quick timeline (for more detail, click here ): 2008: Morris Moinian buys the building and prepares to remove all the small businesses, which included Tamara dry cleaning and tailor shop, The New Chelsea Barber shop, a couple of bodegas, Chelsea Liquors, and the Sweet Banana Candy store. Weeks after that announcement, the community held a rally to save the businesses from eviction. Months later, Chelsea Liquors was gone after 30 years in business, and the bodegas began to fall. Then it got quiet. 2008 2012: Moinian sold the building to the Stonehenge Group, who promptly delivered eviction notices t...

VANISHED The Whitestone multiplex cinema has shuttered after 30 years in business. It was purchased for $30 million last year by real estate development company the Lightstone Group, who will be turning the site into New York City's first outlet mall . For their final marquee, a goodbye note: from South Bronx Network 's facebook page The Lightstone Group is best known these days for its massive luxury development of Gowanus , but they have developed a number of outlet malls--full of typical mall chain stores . The one at Whitestone will be a chain itself--in the Paragon Outlets chain of outlets--and will "feature an open-air racetrack design and showcase over 100 global brands." Last year The Observer noted, " New Yorkers, secretly covetous of the bland, sprawling suburban malls that can be found in the city’s hinterlands, are ecstatic ...incredibly enthusiastic about the prospect of opening more places in New York that feel exactly like the soull...

After years in flux, the southeast corner of East 10th Street and 4th Avenue has returned to the market. Massey Knakal just put up a pair of banners and listed the price for 71 4th Avenue at $24 million . We started following this corner in 2007, when rumors circulated about the demolition of the block's historic artist studio buildings and the coming of high-rise construction . St. Marx Music (formerly a branch of the Atlas Barber School) and the Green East grocer were booted out. The site was covered in plywood and neglected. In 2008, we learned the corner would be demolished to make room for a boutique hotel . It looked like the low-rise buildings would be coming down, but they didn't. Since then, the only activity on this building has come from the Scribbler, a strange graffitist who regularly covered the plywood with his angry messages . But some time in the past year, the Scribbler stopped scribbling. With the Death Star risen and the Hyatt Union Square just op...

On East 14th, the Blarney Cove is closing this week . On their Facebook page they write, "Final count down has begun. Last day of the bar is now June 25th--Tuesday night ... I better see you in person before they shutter the doors." They've been here a long time and every trip to the Cove is like walking into a Bukowski poem. I went in recently for what is likely my last drink. Here's some of what the regulars had to say. "This place is closing. Fucking NYU bought the whole thing , from the corner on down. All these boys here gotta find another hole." "How'm I doin'? Could be worse. Next week I'm getting a full-body everything. They're gonna look at my brain to see if I'm crazy." "I'm so happy! I love you!"  "All the old bars we used to hang out at are gone. The Ukrainian Club. That's gone. Verkhovyna. That's gone. Vazac's was great, but now it's been yuppified . Yuppies? I ...

You can help the flower man who was horribly injured by the drag racer on Second Avenue this week. [ GF ] "Our great, global cities are turning into vast gated citadels where the elite reproduces itself." [ FT ] There's nothing organic about this global hyper-gentrification . [ CL ] Rally this Sunday to stop another 7-Eleven from invading the East Village. [ No 7-11 ] Stop the high-end privatization of Washington Square Park. [ WSP ] Success! "The potential demolition of PS 199 on 70th street and PS 191 on 61st has been averted." [ WSR ] Check out Dirty Looks: On Location, "a series queer interventions in New York City spaces." [ DL ] June 23: Say goodbye to the founder of City Reliquary as he moves to Hawaii--it's a Luau! [ CR ] Andrew Berman celebrated by Vanity Fair for being "savvy and pugnacious enough to recognize that there is no respite for the preservationist, ever, from those who would make the Village ...

I was trying to write something about the Met's punk show . About how it's called "Chaos to Couture," but it's all couture and no chaos. I was trying to say something compelling about the fucked-upness of having a replica of CBGB's bathroom in a museum, where people who never would have set foot inside now stand behind Plexiglas to gawk at urinals. I wanted to convey the icky feeling of exiting the show through the gift shop to find bracelets made of gold razor blades selling for $215, and designer-made satin clutch handbags covered in gold safety pins going for $1495. I was going to say what it was like to hear the saleswoman crowing about how "These are the last CBGB t-shirts in existence. We got the last ones from their warehouse. This is it." And how I seriously considered buying one, but couldn't bring myself to do it. But in the end there's just too much to say, and it's all too obvious. Fish in a barrel, really. So I...

Reader DK writes in about the death of one of the Times Square area's last seedy blocks, West 40th Street between 8th and 9th Avenues, across from the Port Authority bus terminal. before   He says: "what used to be such a proud block: $1 pizza • dive bar • secret afterhours • parole bldg • alley • porn • tranny bar • dance studio • rehearsal space • porn • chinese • liquor • porn is transforming into this: 7/11 • hotel • hotel • hotel • parking • condos • condos • sports bar • gym • bank" after: with another new building behind it DK was living in 306 West 40th when the building next to his, 308 West 40th, was demolished. There's not a lot of history to find on this building, but there is a bit. In the 1990s, New York artist Bill Sullivan ran a small press from #308, publishing many gay and lesbian writers. The first floor was home to A&S Magazines, where (said New York magazine) "owner Kurt Westphal sits strumming his guitar among some 925...

If yesterday's post on the downfall of Coney Island at the hands of Applebee's got you down, cleanse your palate with this little ditty from Air Supply. It's 1982's "Even the Nights Are Better" and it's all filmed in Coney Island. There's Gregory & Paul's ... ...There's Spookarama and Dante's Inferno, too. And a whole lot of white suit action. Watch here:

This past weekend, the Applebee's of Coney Island had its grand opening, unveiling a giant shark tank filled with amusement park miniatures, including a neon Wonder Wheel and Cyclone. The tank was made by Las Vegas' Acrylic Tank Manufacturing company, stars of a reality television show called Tanked , in which two guys make large, elaborate fish tanks, e.g., a 57,000 gallon aquarium for a Dallas megachurch and a "man-cave aquarium" for an NFL player. photo: Coney Applebee's Facebook page Next weekend, the international chain restaurant, that honey-glazed, Fiesta lime-flavored emblem of the suburban dining experience, will throw a Mermaid Parade Party in collaboration with Coney Island USA. Tickets to the party are $45 and they'll give you entry to Applebee's "comfortable air-conditioned dining room" for drinks and an all-you-can-eat buffet in the "ambiance of the hottest new restaurant" in Coney Island. What is wrong with ...

Meet Mr. Tish and Adrian, two octogenarian drag queens still reigning over their Greenwich Village stoop. [ WIC ] Ray's Candy gets a new lease! [ Villager ] June 26: That's the last day for the Blarney Cove . Bloomberg uses our hurricane anxiety to propose a new luxury "neighborhood" to be built "on landfill along the East Side of Manhattan from the Lower East Side to Battery Park, as a way of protecting the area from future hurricane storm surges." [ HP ] All about the Birdman documentary. [ EVG ] a barber stops to watch St. Anthony go by Does anyone remember the mystery gospel trio of Bleecker Street ? Listen to these street recordings from 1990. [ MNYGT ] Check out PopSpots --where the original locations of record cover photos are found. [ PS ] NYU Faculty Against the Sexton Plan wins a Village Award , and much deserved for all their important work. [ GVSHP ] A map of bohemian Greenwich Village in 1925. [ Slate ] Circo's Pastr...

While we're on a roll with old New York photo collections, check out the work of Chris Protopapas on Flickr . Looking through windows in 1974--the glorious Gordon Novelty Shop, a cobbler shop where "old shoes are like old friends," the strange objects in the window of beauty supply store. There are 23 photos here (and another bunch from the early 1980s ). Chris wishes there were more, as he writes, "I guess I should have spent even more time documenting the city in those days, especially the little storefronts which are almost all gone now."

Get ready to have your mind blown--and the next several hours of your life lost. A reader recently connected me to photographer Roy Colmer's collection of New York City doors in the NYPL digital gallery. It consists of 3,000 photos of doors (and 120 intersections), all in Manhattan, all taken in 1976 . McSorley's I got in touch with Mr. Colmer. He told me that it took him one full year to complete the project, "This included the indexing, developing negatives and prints" on 3,000 doors. He chose the doors, and the intersections, at random. As he told me, "I was not concerned with the particular street, historic or architectural importance of the door." He simply walked, pointed, and shot. Whatever got caught in his lens, that's what got caught. B&H Dairy From downtown, Chinatown, Mulberry Street, the Bowery, through Soho and the Village, across East 7th Street and up Second Avenue, back and forth across 14th Street, through Midtown to...