Vanishing New York Backup

Sometimes you stumble upon places and things that remind you that this city is not dead--yet. Not entirely. And it gives you a flutter of hope. After many years of walking all over town, there still remain entire blocks, even in Manhattan, that are unknown to you. So it was when I stepped into Malaysia Beef Jerky at 95A Elizabeth Street in Chinatown. Under an awning bearing the silhouettes of a pig, chicken, and cow, the place is a scruffy little hole in the wall, filled with Buddhist altars and the sweet, spicy fragrance of jerky. The three people behind the counter are businesslike and abrupt. As it should be. An unsmiling woman stands at a sizzling grill in the window, turning thin-sliced squares of pink meat with a pair of tongs. The meat is then stacked in a glass case, under warming light bulbs, behind signs with their simple, no-nonsense names: Beef Jerky, Chicken Jerky, Pork Jerky, spiced or not spiced. Five bucks will get you a quarter pound, warm and greasy, stas...

Last month, I wrote about the forced closing of Jim's Shoe Repair , a beloved fourth-generation business that has been on E. 59th Street since 1932. The story has since appeared on Fox 5 News , and this week Jim's was named by Time Out one of the best shoe repair places in the city. Jim's landlord, S.L. Green, is denying them a new lease and handing their space over to Walgreens, so the neighboring Duane Reade can expand its already large, block-through space. Once again, sky-high rents and the chaining of New York is pushing out our local culture. Please sign (and share) this petition to save Jim's . If you'd like to do more, please write to S.L. Green, letting them know you want Jim's to stay . Write to them electronically by clicking here , or via regular mail: S.L. Green 420 Lexington Avenue New York, NY 10170 Tel: 212-594-2700 You can also write to Walgreens and tell them you don't want them taking over Jim's . Write to them electroni...

A reader, who is a clock collector and preservationist, writes in: " The amazing silk clock on Park and 32nd has vanished . I asked a worker what the story was, as they are doing work on the building, and I had hoped that they were having it repaired. But the worker said the building was going to move it inside. Hopefully this is incorrect." He sent in a photo of the spot where the clock used to be, now just a hole covered by a piece of plywood under scaffolding. Originally known as the Schwarzenbach Buildings , for Schwarzenbach Looms, 470 Park Avenue South was once the home of silk importers. The gorgeous Silk Clock was installed in 1926, flanked by carved terra-cotta silk moths created by fauvist artist Marguerite Zorach . via David Cobb Craig, Street Clocks in NY At the time, the New York Times reported: "In behalf of the Schwarzenbach enterprises, a 'Silk Clock,' made of bronze, was dedicated yesterday morning... The clock, which juts from th...

James and Karla Murray , the photographers who brought us the wonderful book Store Front: The Disappearing Face of New York , have been quietly working on an exciting new project. One by one, they are revisiting all the store fronts they photographed a decade ago and taking new pictures. In the process, they're creating a dramatic and often heartbreaking visual representation of hyper-gentrification . In just about a decade, much of the city's streetscape has changed significantly, shifting in two general directions -- to upscale businesses and condos, or to chain stores and banks. It's a startling view of the city before and after Bloomberg. I asked the Murrays a few questions about their "before and after" project . all photos James & Karla Murray: see more here What inspired you to embark on this project? We embarked on the before-and-after project when over 10 years had passed since we had initially started photographing the mom-and-pop stores, ...

VANISHING Reader Leonardo Urbina writes in to let us know that Kenn Reisdorff, owner of Bob & Kenn's Broome Street Bar recently passed away--and that the bar will go with him . Leonardo writes, "It will be closing after the year finishes. The lease would renew in January and one of the two daughters doesn't want to maintain it. There goes another neighborhood institution." *Update: Mr. Riesdorff's obituary calls him "a gentlemanly fixture in the neighborhood, recognizable by his custom-made cowboy hats from a hatmaker in New Mexico, turquoise jewelry, cowboy boots and friendly demeanor." Located in a landmarked building that might be the oldest structure in Soho, dating back to 1825 , the Broome Street Bar opened in 1972 . There's been a bar here since the 1850s. According to The Historic Shops & Restaurants of New York , the stained glass windows and panels around the bar come from the time when it was a German beer hall in t...

At long last, the new location of St. Mark's Bookshop has been revealed. Co-owner Terry McCoy writes in, " The space we want to move to is at 136 East Third Street, just west of Avenue A. We've been sent a proposed lease, and we have a lawyer who has gone through it and sent comments to the landlord, who is the city, or NYCHA. There's a long way to go to signing a lease, though." Terry says, "We're trying to raise a lot of money to be able to afford to move, and the main thrust right now is our Indiegogo campaign , which is St. Mark's on the Move. We're working on a few other fronts as well. There is a committee of concerned people who want to help called the Friends of St. Mark's Bookshop, who are all working on the issue." Please consider giving to the bookshop's Indiegogo campaign so the East Village, and the city, can enjoy this great bookstore for years to come. All my previous coverage of St. Mark's fight to su...

On the Bowery since 1933, Max Maged & Sons' King Glassware Supplies had been in business for 81 years, selling glasses to restaurants and other customers. They closed sometime in the past month. Over at Yelp , one reviewer wrote, "it is nice to to do business with a family business that has been operating for over 80 years. when he is no longer there, i will know he sold his building at his prices as he so rightfully deserves." Another reviewer, Kate in Brooklyn, recalled shopping for an obscure item. She wrote of the owner, "We talked about how his family had owned the business since the depression era, with his father and grandfather running it before him. Spurred on by a tall display of Libbey glassware (which you're familiar with if you drink in most establishments that serve decent cocktails), we talked about the ridiculous changes in bar culture and the horrorshow that is an 11oz martini glass." She added, " keep this place alive as the ...

The New York Times today mentioned this blog in their piece on " The Red Sauce Juggernaut ." Writes Jeff Gordinier: "Click to a blog like Jeremiah’s Vanishing New York, though, and you may get the impression that Major Food is forcing out ancient, authentic, downtown grit (such as Rocco, the sleepy old-school restaurant whose space Carbone took over) to make room for gentrified gloss. 'Leave it alone and it’s going to go away,' Mr. Carbone said. 'You’re not going to have the Colosseum to look at if someone doesn’t fix it.' They see their efforts as a way to preserve and elevate each restaurant space, instead of letting it vanish in a landscape dominated by generic chain stores. As Mr. Zalanick said: 'What’s it going to become? A Chase? A Duane Reade?'" (Echoes of the "Better Than a Bank" false dichotomy .) If you're clicking over from the Times , and want to read more, here's everything I've written on the t...

The Whole Foods recently built on the toxic waste dump that is Gowanus has been cited a second time , reports Brooklyn Paper , for not fulfilling their promise to fix up the lovely landmarked Coignet Building they abut. The Coignet stands crumbling in Whole Foods' grip, a remnant of the past and maybe a thorn in the corporate grocer's side. I went out to visit this Whole Foods after it opened, knowing well that the chain is a catalyst for change, a tool for spurring on hyper-gentrification, and that the Gowanus landscape surrounding it will soon be dramatically altered. The mega-chain is trying very hard to look local, with sections hawking "Brooklyn Flavor," bike repair services, and a mini shop selling vinyl, both records and objects made from recycled records, by "a Brooklyn-based design and lifestyle brand." There's even a mustachioed artisanal knife sharpener who cobbles together hand-made knives from reclaimed materials. And the "S...

The Lively Set, a vintage lamp store on Bedford Street, is closing on March 31. From a past report at DNA , it sounds like they've been closing for a year now, but somehow hung on. Now they're having an "everything must go" sale. They've been on Bedford for nearly 20 years, but can't afford the rent hike.

One year ago, the Rawhide bar was forced to close after 34 years in Chelsea. The space went to a west coast pizza chain called Project Pie, "the Chipotle of fast-casual pizza," but that deal later fell through. The Rawhide space remains empty today. Did Project Pie back out of the deal? Why is 212 8th Avenue, a prime High Line-adjacent property, still empty? Reader Chris speculates, "I wonder if it has anything to do with the fact that that space is on the same block with two gay sex stores that are crawling with outer borough hustlers ." Indeed, neighbors have tried to shut down Rainbow Station and The Blue store , complaining to city officials about "24/7 Murder, Drugs, Male Prostitution, Rowdiness, Noise at Night Burglary." But the sex shops soldier on, keeping this stretch of rapidly hyper-gentrifying 8th Avenue safe for dirty queers, and not so safe for shiny, happy pizza chains from San Diego. For now.

Continuing the sad story of the destruction of the Mayfair building in Times Square, 701 7th Avenue, a look at the visual history of its big, wraparound corner billboard. photo by Aylon Samson Photographer Aylon Samson sent in the above photo of the building currently wrapped in a black demolition shroud, the last of its many costume changes through the decades. NYPL, c. 1935 The building was originally home to the Columbia vaudeville house, then the Loews Mayfair. The billboard has sort of always been there, framed in lights, heralding the big-screen movies inside. Like The Day the Earth Stood Still and a spectacular 3-D Jane Russell being chased by sharks in Underwater ! That was the heyday of the 1950s. c. 1951 c. 1954 (In some photos of the Mayfair, you get a glimpse of the Parisian Dance Land taxi dance hall--above Whelan's, in the lower right corner, next to the RKO Palace. The dance hall was featured in Stanley Kubrick's film Killer's Kiss . Read...

After World War II, Washington Square Park filled up with young people and musicians, their numbers growing over the years. By 1961, neighbors had had enough of the bohemians, urging the parks commission to put an end to the folk music--and to the racial mixing that went on around the bongo drums, as recounted by John Strausbaugh in his invaluable history The Village . The ensuing protest, an occupation of the park’s large central fountain, inspired a hysterical headline: "3000 Beatniks Riot in Village." It was also captured in the extraordinary documentary film Sunday by Dan Drasin . In crisp black and white, we see and hear the protesters as they fight for their right to play folk songs, carrying signs that read “Keep Strumming” and “We Want Folk Singing.” In arguments with the police, one young man says, “Real estate’s at the bottom of this.” Another says, “They’re trying to kill the Village.” The musicians won that battle and kept on singing through the decades, ...

Last week, we talked about hyper-gentrification , the brand of urban change we're living with today, a very different process from old-fashioned gentrification. In my long essay, I referenced "brownstone fever" and this 1969 feature in New York magazine . (For an analysis of how New York magazine helped to market a new urban lifestyle, see Miriam Greenberg's Branding New York .) The 1969 article is a fascinating historic artifact, an in-depth piece about the New Yorkers who were moving out of their "aseptic uptown apartments" and making new homes from fixer-upper brownstones in no-man's land neighborhoods like Chelsea, the East Village, the Upper West Side, "even Brooklyn." Says the article, "Strange but true: People from Scarsdale are now alive and well in Brooklyn; contented in places called Fort Greene and Boerum Hill and Park Slope." From the writing, it's clear that the magazine's readers might never have heard of...

200 Cigarettes is not the greatest movie ever made, but it's worth watching, if only because it was filmed in the East Village in the 1990s (it takes place in the 1980s), and features shots of many vanished spots. It's the story of a girl waiting for guests to show up to her New Year's Eve party. The guests are all involved in their own personal dramas--two girls from Long Island panic as they cross Avenue B , Paul Rudd and Courtney Love bicker their way from 7th Street to Avenue A--and they arrive late to the party. There's Gaby Hoffman in front of Body Worship, a fetish shop on E. 7th Street that featured a penis for a door handle. In 1994, the shop caused an uproar on the block for its window display of "two mannequins striking sexually revealing master/slave poses prepared to engage in explicit sadomasochistic activities." There's Eddie Boros' Tower of Toys, destroyed in 2008 . And the "old" Odessa, its  neon turned off for...