Vanishing New York Backup

Recently, we had cause to worry about Gramercy Pawnbrokers . After surviving the luxury NYU dorm-condo that dropped on top of it (literally, on top of it), the little holdout pawn shop had a For Rent sign on its facade. Fear not. The pawnbrokers were only renting out a sliver of their shop. A reader sent in the following shot of the new tenant-- no cupcakes, no frozen yogurt, no 7-Eleven. Just a humble barber shop . I would have missed the antique signage on the 24th St. side, and the strange, sad, lovely windows with their dusty violins, outdated calculators, and unpolished jewelry .

Last winter, when photographer Brian Rose shared his shots of the Meatpacking District in 1985 , I begged him to go back and take "after" photos of the same shots. I guess a lot of other folks begged him, too, because the man has done it. The result is, as expected, amazing , a vivid look at the old world and the new, 1985 versus 2013. all photos by Brian Rose The old world was meatpackers. In 1974, there were 160 businesses handling meat on those streets. Under metal awnings, sides of beef hung on hooks, dripping blood and fat onto the sidewalks, where men in red-smeared white smocks toiled in the pre-dawn dark. The old world was underground BDSM sex. In the 1970s, gay leather clubs opened shop—The Anvil, The Spike, The Hellfire, and The Mineshaft, whose dark corners were brought into the spotlight by Al Pacino in William Friedkin’s 1980 film Cruising . The old world was transgender sex workers. The cobblestones were their stroll. They worked in packs for safety,...

We've talked to photographers obsessed with capturing the city's vanishing newsstands , its disappearing bodegas , and its fading storefronts . Now we meet one who has taken on the photographic preservation of its diminishing laundromats. Snorri Sturluson is an Icelandic photographer living in New York City. With Powerhouse Books, he recently published Laundromat , a collection of photos of the city's laundromats, all taken from 2008 to 2012, in all five boroughs. In addition, the Introduction to the book , written by author D. Foy, provides a detailed account of laundromat lore. I asked the photographer a few questions about his work. All photos by Snorri Sturluson Q: What drew you to the laundromats of the city? A: As a photographer my initial interest in a story or subject is usually visual. I found the design, the look, the colors, the similarities and the differences in the Laundromats in NYC intriguing. So that was the initial draw. As often happens in ...

When last we checked with 301 West 46th , on 8th Avenue, it was being readied for demolition. Since then, it's almost vanished. Old plans for a new tower here were obsolete, scrapped when the market crashed. Now we hear about the new plan coming to replace it. New York Yimby has a photo: And Crain's reports: "The Mallorca-based hotelier RIU Hotels & Resorts is nearly done demolishing a derelict residential property at 301 W. 42nd St. on the multiparcel site. The site includes an adjacent vacant lot on Eighth Avenue just north of that building as well as one to the west along Restaurant Row. According to previous reports, RIU plans to build a 600-room, roughly 300,000-square-foot tower . Currently work on the five-story 301 W. 42nd St., an eyesore whose boarded up windows, ground floor porn shop and graffiti scrawled exterior made it look like a throwback to the avenue's gritty days decades ago, has reduced it to its second floor." 2007 Again, so...

Wednesday, Aug 28, rally to keep Quinnberg out of office --5pm at 7th Ave and Greenwich. [ FB ] Greenpoint to get a massive condo tower complex complete with Poor Door . [ NYS ] A review of the Bloomberg years . [ NYer ] Cool and horrifying maps on how Bloomberg reshaped New York . [ NYT ] The truth about Bloomberg's record on affordable housing . [ Awl ] Even the milk is getting too expensive in East Harlem . [ NYP ] Confessions of a Harlem gentrifier . [ Salon ] Inside Red Hook's abandoned grain terminal . [ Curbed ] Cats in windows. [ TGL ] The ramen place that replaced 42-year-old Love Saves the Day has closed, after just a few years. And that's how this goes. [ EVG ] New murals and graffiti photos from NYC in the 90s. [ NYC90s ]

After more than 20 years in business, Bleecker Street Records will be vanishing from Bleecker Street. But it will be reappearing right around the corner, in a new space at 188 West 4th St., between Jones and Barrow. Earlier this year we heard they might be shuttering, maybe vanishing for good. Reported 1010 WINS: "the store will probably close in April, because the new landlord plans to jack up the rent to $27,000 a month . Chris Simunek believes that trend is running the Village. 'It’s absurd,' he said. 'You know, what’s going to go in there is a Starbucks or something, or just something that we already have plenty of.'" More likely, it will be a frozen yogurt shop or candy store for adults--more of those are opening on Bleecker every day, as the street completes its total transformation into a cultural dead zone. (Bleecker Bob's has not been resurrected.) Let's hope the record shop's new landlord lets them keep Skuzzball and ...

VANISHED When the Torrisi company announced their takeover of Rocco's restaurant on Thompson Street, I took a look at the neighboring Greenwich Laundromat and thought, "That's not going to last." It had that look--the look of the vulnerable. Maybe it was the sign--hand-painted, faded, plenty of character. Well, it's gone. This often happens when upscale businesses move nearby. Property values go up and older, smaller businesses get the boot. Of course, we don't know exactly what happened here. Maybe it was just a coincidence and the Greenwich Laundromat people were ready to retire. Maybe they're moving on to greener pastures. But we also heard from a reader that Carbone might be expanding their space. If anyone knows the story here, please let us know.

VANISHED  Time to add yet another casualty to the High Line's hit list, as every single blue-collar business along its length is rapidly being wiped out. When the blindingly bright luxury condo 245 10th Avenue rose up, wrapping itself around a Lukoil gas station to lean over the High Line, we knew the Lukoil couldn't last. No matter that the gas station was always busy, it just didn't fit with the new neighborhood. The two sides of the condo facing the gas station were built with no windows, obviously awaiting a future tower to come. And now it's coming. I walked by recently to find the gas station shuttered, its signs ripped down, and the whole thing surrounded by a wall of tastefully potted shrubbery--musn't upset the neighbors with unsightly developer blight. A nearby worker told me it closed about a week ago. In a big story about High Line overdevelopment, the New York Post reported that the lot was purchased by luxury developer Michael Shvo ...

Today at noon, join mayoral hopeful Bill de Blasio for a "Hospitals Not Condos Rally" at the site of the former St. Vincent's, on the northwest corner of Seventh and Greenwich Avenues. Supportive celebrities like Susan Sarandon, Rosie Perez, and Harry Belafonte will be there, along with hospital workers and community activists who say, "We are demanding an end to the same bad policies that led to the tragic closing of St. Vincent's Hospital and its conversion into high end condos." (Maybe de Blasio will be arrested again, as he was at last month's hospital-closing protest.) If you haven't taken a look at the battered, desecrated corpse that was St. Vincent's, now is a good time. The buildings have been demolished, down to a hole in the ground, but some brick shells remain. They will serve as the gutted skins of the luxurious Greenwich Lane. "Live exactly where you want," says the copy that runs along the plywood of 11th a...

Yesterday, the Whitney Museum installed a temporary recreation of Edward Hopper’s painting Nighthawks in the Flatiron Building's Prow Artspace. The Whitney's Curator of Drawings, Carter E. Foster, believes that the Flatiron's curved glass prow was part of the inspiration for the painting. You can read more about that theory in my interview with Foster here , as well as my own three-part search for the Nighthawks diner here . With life-size cut-outs of the nighthawks in their places around the diner counter, and with the lights turned on at night, you can almost imagine yourself as a voyeur inside Hopper's scene--except he didn't have any iPhone texters in his painting. You can see the installation at the Flatiron through October 6 .

" Bill de Blasio will reportedly hold a press conference this Mon., Aug. 19, at noon, at the site of the former St. Vincent’s Hospital" ...and he'll be promising a new hospital. [ Villager ] A goodbye to Jackie's 5th Amendment . [ OMFS ] New owners to take over Kossar's Bialys . [ TLD ]  You still have a little bit of time to dine at the original Odessa before it's gone. [ EVG ] Watching the "Wall Dogs" paint. [ WIC ] " A New York socialite was living there [before] and her boyfriend, who happened to be well known graffiti artist, painted it as a housewarming," Young explained.  "I thought it was an asset for the right person. It was such a cute pre-war apartment, and it was just really cute to have this graffiti." [ DNA ] Young women dig through the garbage for spoiled cronuts . [ Gothamist ] New UWS development comes with a separate door for the poor . [ WSR ] Wayne Koestenbaum on Debbie Harry at the S...

If you haven't yet had a chance to visit Paul Sahner's blog NYC Grid , now is a good time to start. He recently launched a "Before & After" feature in which he re-creates shots from the Library of Congress' collection of 20th century New York City photography--and then he binds those photos to his own with a "before and after" bar you can slide back and forth. It gives you a momentary feeling of control over the city and its changing. Slide the doohickey to the left and watch the city get boring as shoeshine men, neon signs, and well-dressed ladies vanish before your eyes. Slide it to the right and watch the dull city of today magically disappear, replaced by puffing Camel signs, juice drink stands, and sailors on ice skates. (Don't miss Paul's 1961 collection , too.)

After 12 years under the billionaire mayor Bloomberg (4 more than was legal), the city has undergone massive, catastrophic change. In his drive to create a "luxury city" built exclusively for the wealthy, Bloomberg rezoned nearly 40% of the city's land mass , and much of that was up-zoning--knocking down old buildings, evicting residents and businesses, using eminent domain to steal people's property, so the real-estate developers could erect towers of glass loaded with amenities for the super rich. Under Bloomberg, we watched our small mom-and-pop businesses struggle and die , while national and global chain stores proliferated exponentially like bedbugs. Many of those small businesses had been in the city for decades, run by third- and fourth-generation families. If you tally up all that history, well over 6,000 years of independent business were lost during the Bloomberg era. Rents and home prices skyrocketed as neighborhoods were gentrified, and then hyper-g...

If you are at all obsessed with 1960s and 70s New York on film, you'll find a kinship with Jonathan Hertzberg, who has painstakingly and exhaustively spliced together movie clips from that gritty, grimy era to give us "Dirty Old New York, aka Fun City," a collection of three videos that immerse you in that time and place. Start with Part One: Dirty Old New York aka Fun City, Part I from Jonathan Hertzberg on Vimeo . I asked Jonathan about the project and here's what he said: "I'm a lifelong cinephile, and New York holds particular fascination for me because of how much I love the city and because it's constantly in flux. Over time, films shot on location in New York take on a secondary, documentary-like function, preserving images of places that no longer exist, or which exist in radically different form. I've long been a voracious consumer of late '60s and '70s American cinema, in large part because of the 'anything goes...

Today, when you arrive at Coney Island and emerge from the train station, instead of the grand old Henderson Building , the first thing you see is the global chain candy store IT'SUGAR, topped with a billboard from which mega-developer Thor Equities (misspelled "Equites") welcomes you, as if Coney Island belonged to them. Which, actually, it does.   When IT'SUGAR opened this spring, The Brooklyn Paper reported that their CEO declared that customers would choose his shop over nearby old-timer Williams Candy because of IT'SUGAR's "sleek, trendy vibe and jumbo, novelty-size boxes" of big-brand candies like Nerds and Snickers. So how do the two compare? Local, family-run Williams Candy has been here for some 75 years . When you walk into their comfortable old shop, you are welcomed by the most wonderful aroma, a powerful mix of chocolate, roasted nuts, popcorn, and candy apples--which they make onsite by hand. The place is warm and inviting....

The Nation endorses Bill de Blasio : "His candidacy is an opportunity for New Yorkers to reimagine their city in boldly progressive ways." [ TN ] You have a little more time to dine at the original Odessa before it closes forever. [ EVG ] Take a drive up Avenue D in the 1980s. [ BB ] Watch The Birdman in its entirety--the story of an East Village CD and tape salesman. [ Vimeo ] A Chelsea laundromat reveals its old sign. [ FNY ] Big NYC developers getting subpoenas, including Joe Sitt, to see if they got tax breaks in exchange for campaign donations. [ Crain's ] On the coming demolition of 5Pointz . [ UC ] Union Street mural painted over. [ HPS ] How landmarking helps affordability. [ Villager ] Today and tomorrow: Huge record sale at the NYPL. [ VF ] CBGB the movie, the trailer. [ youtube ] "If any middle-class presence in a diverse neighborhood is evidence of gentrification ...then it's impossible for a middle-class person not to gen...

There's been busy activity at the former University Restaurant space, empty since the 60-year-old diner was evicted last September. What's moving in? The guy next door said, "It's some kind of international cookie place , like some kind of place that sells cookies and candies and stuff. Like chocolate. And cookies. Stuff like that." We need more? We don't have enough fro-yo, ice cream, chocolate, cupcake, cronut, yum-yum, nom-nom places to placate one's inner child already? What we do need is another diner--as street petitioner Margaret once asked for , "one that is low-key (soft lighting), affordable, with the same welcoming, friendly feeling." I can guarantee you, the international cookie and candy place won't be any of those things. And great conversations like this definitely won't be happening there. Previously: Save Our Diner University Diner Closing

If you haven't yet seen the movie Zipper: Coney Island's Last Wild Ride , you absolutely must. I won't take no for an answer. And you're about to get your chance-- the movie will be playing at IFC Center in the Village for a one-week engagement starting August 9 . Zipper tells the harrowing true tale of corporate and political greed as Bloomberg, real-estate developers, and other vampires battle for control over one of the city's last authentic places. I asked the film's producer/director, Amy Nicholson , a few questions: Q: What do you think was Coney Island's importance to the people of New York, and to the meaning of the city? Do you think it still holds the same importance today, after its gutting? A: For more than a hundred years Coney Island has been near and dear to the hearts of New Yorkers and people from around the county and the world, in spite of her many ups and downs over time. Coney had become hugely important sometime around th...

VANISHING A tipster writes in that the Parish House of the Madison Avenue Baptist Church, at 30 East 31st St., "is going to be put on the market in the next year. The owner wants to deliver the building empty, because apparently if torn down (gasp!) the lot can be developed some 30 stories up--perfect for a fancy high-rise or hotel . It still has a gorgeous old elevator that needs to be hand operated, and the detail in the building is exquisite. Built in 1905, it should be landmarked ." The Parish House has had a long history of providing space to arts organizations. The Viola Farber Dance Company moved here in 1977, after a previous eviction, and in 1978 the Parish House was also home to the Bel Canto Opera Company. Currently, the building houses The Dokoudovsky New York Conservatory of Dance , where classes take place in a gorgeous studio with 28-foot ceilings, and the New York Theatre Ballet , about which the Times wrote, "This place really does know childre...