Vanishing New York Backup

Reader Mitch writes in: "News is that the Gotham Deli -- Columbus Ave between 72nd & 73rd Street (East Side of Street) -- will be closing due to a rent hike. The Starbucks located next door will be expanding into the deli's space." Gotham is just a little deli, a place for sandwiches, but it's been there a long time and people in the neighborhood like the place. Do we really need more of Starbucks?

Thank you to the Friends of the Upper East Side Historic Districts for their Preserving Classic New York Award.

Back in January, DNA reported that Hudson Street's Cowgirl, nee Cowgirl Hall of Fame , "saw its rent increase to nearly $40,000 per month, including real estate taxes, at the same time as business slowed." The manager said there were no plans to close: "Cowgirl is gearing up to celebrate its 25th anniversary this year and isn't hanging up its spurs anytime soon." More recently, I got the following note from a regular reader: " There is VERY quiet talk of a possible Cowgirl Hall of Fame closing! I don't know how true the rumor is--but it did come from an informed reliable source! I'm unsure of any date. But I fear sooner than later. I know they have an anniversary coming up. I have a feeling they are going to celebrate and then try to sneak away or announce it and go shortly there after? I'm scared." So, more rumor? As with all of these uncertain situations, the best plan of action is to go before it's gone. You never know w

Photographer Tim Schreier sent in a collection of depressing photographs showing what's become of the Iron Triangle at Willets Point. What had been a bustling community of small business people and their customers is now a dead zone, waiting to be flattened by bulldozers set in motion by Bloomberg. Tim writes: "I had not been to Willets in a few months and was curious to see how the community of businesses (primarily auto repair and supply businesses) was faring since receiving eviction notices from the city. What I saw was a few businesses hanging on but, for the most part, it was like a ghost town. Willets Point was a thriving, multicultural business community. One could detect not only various languages being spoken but dialects as well. It was a very busy community, businesses thriving individually and collectively. To the small business owner, it was a place of active trade. A place where they could earn and work. To Citi Field, the city, and other gentrificatio

After approximately 20 years in the East Village, on Third and 10th, the Biomed pharmacy is closing. The rent is too high, according to the cashier (who has a large family to support and is seeking work, if you know of something). Pretty much everything is 50% off until it's gone. Biomed was one of a dying breed of surgical supply shops, the place to go if you needed a bedpan or a sling or some rubber catheter tubing, a knee brace, a sitz bath, crutches, or a wheelchair. They still have an impressive selection of podiatry products, including bunion regulators and hammer toe cushions.  I always enjoyed walking past their "Ben & Jerry's" "Bed Bug Spray" signs in the window, a coupling that never failed to amuse. Sometimes I'd go in to buy regular stuff--Tums, Advil, a bottle of soda--and marvel at the vast and somewhat horrifying array of wounds and woes one could treat from their copious shelves. I also liked to think about what use

Outside of the Millinery Center Synagogue , on 6th Avenue between 38th and 39th Streets, Cantor Tuvia Yamnik stands by a table from which he sells sets of bedsheets, occasionally calling out, "100% Egyptian cotton!" This unusual practice has been going on since 1998 . Just walking by, I stopped to talk to the cantor, a warm and friendly man. He explained that the synagogue was recently damaged by a flood--not a Biblical flood, but a busted plumbing pipe--and that they're trying to raise money for the repairs . I made a donation and went inside to look. The floor boards were buckled, the holy books covered in mold and stacked in piles. The place needs help. The synagogue dates back to 1934 when it was founded by hat makers in what had been a thriving Garment District. The congregration began by gathering in a loft building, then moved to the synagogue when it was completed in 1948 . Daytonian in Manhattan recalls, "Here such groups as the Millinery Bo

Recently, I engaged in an email conversation about gentrification with John Joe Schlichtman, formerly of Brooklyn, currently professor in Chicago's DePaul University Department of Sociology, and co-author with Jason Patch of “ Gentrifier? Who, Me? Interrogating the Gentrifier in the Mirror ." In the article, which prompted me to reach out to Schlichtman, the authors exhort critics of gentrification to examine their own relationship to the process. They are working on a book, tackling this topic, to be published with University of Toronto Press. JM: Let's start with your paper. What do you see as hypocritical about urbanists critiquing gentrification? Or is hypocritical the right word? JJS: I see nothing hypocritical about urbanists critiquing gentrification. This was a misreading of my article with Jason Patch, “ Gentrifier? Who, Me? Interrogating the Gentrifier in the Mirror ,” that gained momentum through the Atlantic Cities piece about our article. Emily Badger

As Funkiberry frozen yogurt (yes, another one) prepares to move into the corner spot at Third Avenue and 12th Street, the old sign has been stripped a few times. AAA Amici pizza (" rent-hiked out of there ") was removed to reveal Laurence & Paul's Pizza. That, in turn, was just removed to reveal Luigi's 3rd Ave. Pizza. Reader Sean caught the sign just as it was being destroyed. He sends in these photos and notes that the sign likely dates to the 1970s or 80s. (Does anyone remember Luigi's?) Sean says, "I pulled an 'A' of the sign out of the trash. Thin aluminum sign front and thin plastic infill. Definitely not that old, but old enough to be cool. I will donate these artifacts to the right person." Any takers?

When the Famous Oyster Bar (of 54th Street since 1959) closed suddenly this past January due to "exorbitant rent prices," and every part of it went up for auction, we thought we'd seen the last of its bright red neon sign. But the sign has reappeared, all the way down on Delancey Street. It's now part of the facade on the Grey Lady, a restaurant with a Nantucket theme. Again with the small-town America theming of New York, but anyway, there's the sign, alive and well. So that's something.

Reader Michael writes in to let us know that OK Cigars on West Broadway in Soho is closing the first week of June. The shop was opened by Ivan Karp, Andy Warhol's art dealer and one of the first gallery owners in Soho. He founded the gallery OK Harris in 1969 and added the cigar shop nearly 30 years later. A frosted glass door reading SMOKE ROOM opens one space onto the other. "An avid cigar smoker," writes shop employee Gavin Baker in Everything's OK , "Ivan was searching for a smoking room once his gallery forbade the timeless ritual. Brilliantly, he converted the gallery’s supply closet into a cigar shop. In 1997, OK Cigars was born. Shortly after, Ivan partnered with Len Brunson, a blues guitarist and reluctant cigar connoisseur." (It was that or a doughnut shop, Gavin explains on video --Karp was a big fan of the Donut Pub on 14th Street. But cigars made sense, as the building was once home to a tobacco curing plant.) Karp died in 2012 a

The New York Times ' "Room for Debate" asked me to participate in their discussion on gentrification and what can be done about it. Here's my take--in 300 words (for the longer, more thorough version, check out my post on hyper-gentrification ): The old-school gentrification of the 20th century, while harmful, wasn’t all bad. It made streets safer, created jobs and brought fresh vegetables to the corner store. Today, however, what we talk about when we talk about gentrification is actually a far more destructive process, one that I prefer to call hyper-gentrification . Unlike gentrification, in which the agents of change were middle-class settlers moving into working-class and poor neighborhoods, in hyper-gentrification the change comes from city government in collaboration with large corporations. Widespread transformation is intentional, massive and swift, resulting in a completely sanitized city filled with brand-name mega-developments built for the luxury

On Friday night, reader Robert Bischoff wrote in: "I made a last trip to Rizzoli's 57th Street Bookstore as they closed. A construction crew was waiting outside, and as the last customer left and the staff still inside, they began to erect a wooden storefront enclosure." He attached these photos: Protesters had spent the day outside the beloved shop , waving signs that said "Save 57th Street," "Save Rizzoli," and "Shame on LPC." The Landmarks Preservation Committee had twice denied the bookstore and its historic building any protection from the coming demolition. In one photo, employees wave from the upper window, as if they're being sealed inside the soon-to-be tomb. It does seem a little soon, unrolling the yellow caution tape and putting up the plywood before the corpse is even cold.

Rizzoli Bookstore, after 30 years on 57th Street, will be closing its doors tomorrow, its gorgeous building slated for demolition. There is, however, one last chance, as Landmarks considers an application to preserve its interior . Here's what will be turned to dust by Vornado and LeFrak if Landmarks says no. The intricately decorated ceiling is loaded with imagery--birds, cherubs, and goddesses, along with winged monkeys tooting horns while riding on the backs of gryphons. No kidding. Well, they look like flying monkeys. Here's another description: " An explosion of birds, flowers, shells, chimeras, putti riding hippocamps, and maidens dancing to the accompaniment of lyres and harps ." Rizzoli may not return to this space, but the building is worth preserving, and we can't let the developers win another one. Sign the petition to save this building. And check out Rizzoli's 40%-off moving sale -- it ends tomorrow.

VANISHING? A tipster has written in that "Pearl Paint will be closing its Canal Street store soon," according to an employee. The information has not been confirmed with Pearl; however, Tribeca Citizen also notes this week that the Pearl building is for sale or lease: "the store is a downtown icon, and from the sound of the listing, Pearl isn’t likely to survive a transition. The entire six-level, 11,850-square-foot space is listed on Massey Knakal’s website for sale or rent—or teardown." A mecca for artists, with six floors of absolutely everything art supply, Pearl began closing stores in 2010. People worried about the Canal Street location, but it soldiered on. Now, at the same time that artists are being pushed further out of town, it looks like time is up for this important piece of the old creative city. What might come to replace it? The realtor suggests it's an "Outstanding Condo Conversion Opportunity." And invites inter

Gracie's Corner diner, on First Avenue and 86th Street, is leaving its corner after decades in business. Employees at the diner say the whole building is coming down, demolished for a new condo development. A sign on the shuttered pizza place next door reads, "Due to recent building events out of our control, we have amicably accepted to leave this location." A reader writes in with some good news: "Gracie's Diner bought the Viand Diner a block over on 2nd & 86th. It's already renamed Gracie's on 2nd." So, after a shuffle, it's goodbye old Gracie's, goodbye Viand , and hello new Gracie's. In the end, the city is down one diner and up another luxury condo tower.

1.  Cornelius “Neil” Byrne leans against the stall of a butterscotch horse named Cowboy and gazes out the second-story window of Central Park Carriages on far West 37th Street. Just a few blocks to the south, a crowd of construction cranes stabs the sky above Hudson Yards. They swing slowly back and forth like giant knitting needles stitching together the new mega-development from scratch. “I keep looking out at those cranes,” Byrne says. “You don’t have to be a real estate expert to see what’s going on here. So much is going to follow those cranes. Unprecedented growth, they say. I know why Bloomberg called this neighborhood the new Gold Coast. That’s change out there. And it’s change that’s eliminating me.” If Mayor de Blasio’s plan to ban carriage horses goes through, Byrne and the handful of other stable owners in the city will be forced to close, their century-old buildings demolished, and their horses--about 200 of them--scattered to places no one’s exactly sure about. Be