Vanishing New York Backup

Recently, the Daily News reported on the existence of a city-sponsored ethnographic study entitled " The Effects of Neighborhood Change on NYCHA Residents ." Published back in May, the study looked at three housing projects across the city and concluded what we all know: Gentrification is not good for the poor. new park at Hudson Yards This may seem obvious and not worth the time and expense of a study, but it's actually not obvious at all to many people. Journalists today are asking, " Is gentrification all bad? " They're urging, " Gentrifiers, hold your heads high ." They go so far as to call gentrification " healthy for cities ," decrying it as a "myth" that's " not as bad for the poor as you think ." They even holler about how " Gentrification is good for the poor ." In conversations about gentrification, we're constantly hearing about how it brings in wonderful things for all to enjoy, li...

This summer I reported that the Market Diner would be closing . Later reports gave the place six months to a year to live. Turns out, it was only four months. We now hear the diner's final day will be this Sunday, November 1. photo: Karen Gehres Reader Karen Gehres sends in a photo of a notice put up in her building at Manhattan Plaza. "Enjoy it while you can and say goodbye," reads the sign. "Yet another excellent and reasonably priced neighborhood restaurant bites the dust." I called the diner and was told they will go through the weekend. Their last day will be Sunday, November 1 . Yet again, it's not biting the dust because business is bad, or because it's not a viable business, as the folks in City Hall might want us to believe . Anytime I've gone by the Market Diner, the place was packed. People love it. It's dying because of development. It's dying because of the Hudson Yards Effect. It's dying because Joseph Moinian’s ...

Last week, the Municipal Art Society held their annual Summit for New York City . Entitled "The City We Want," the two-day event brought urbanists together to discuss and present on issues like improving infrastructure and affordability. There was a flurry of information and ideas, but the talk that's been keeping me up at night came from Deputy Mayor Alicia Glen. She spoke with MAS Director Carol Coletta in a conversation entitled "Fostering Economic Diversity." The discussion followed a recorded #SaveNYC presentation that I wrote and narrated, with photos by James & Karla Murray showing the devastation to our small business landscape over the past decade. Coletta asked Glen if she thought the city should intervene in the vanishing of our mom and pops. (Maybe, as I had suggested, by passing the Small Business Jobs Survival Act, controlling the spread of chain stores, and penalizing landlords who create "high-rent blight" by keeping spaces ...

At long last, after many efforts, I am happy to report there will be a Vanishing New York book. From the official trade announcement today: "Blogger Jeremiah Moss's VANISHING NEW YORK, a critique of the ills of hyper-gentrification and suburbanization of our cultural hubs, a rallying cry for how we can stop it (in New York and other cities around the world), and a lyrical look at why cities need souls." Many thanks to my agent, Anthony Mattero at Foundry Literary + Media , and to my editor, Denise Oswald at HarperCollins' Dey Street Books , for taking a chance on a cranky blogger. And endless thanks to everyone who reads this blog, and keeps reading it (even though it's depressing), for all your support over the years. I'm grateful that we're all in it together.

VANISHING Elayne Kling of ZP Auto , previously of Noho in Manhattan and now in Williamsburg, wrote in to let us know that her shop will be closing its doors on October 30, after 30 years in business. Previously located on Lafayette and Great Jones, ZP moved out 2011 when a new condo development moved in. I asked Elayne a few questions about her situation. photo via EV Grieve, 2011 Q: You've been in the city for 30 years. What caused you to relocate from Noho in Manhattan to Brooklyn? A: We relocated in 2011 after years of threats to put up a building on our location. The reason why we lasted as long as we did is that the subway runs under that building and any new structure would have had to be reinforced which always seemed to be a deal breaker, much to our relief. Finally someone came along and agreed to spend that money, although close to 5 years later that building is still not finished. Work didn't even start for a couple of years after we left, which was so fru...

Artists have had their studios in Gowanus since at least the 1970s. For decades, the industrial no man's land between Park Slope and Carroll Gardens was otherwise "undiscovered," known intimately only by the working class people who lived there, the working class people who worked there, and a handful of artists. All of that has changed in just the past few years, as Brooklyn has become an unaffordable, international brand of luxury and hipness--making every inch of the borough potentially "the next Williamsburg." Developers have descended on the shit-filled canal. This past weekend, during Gowanus Open Studios, a group of artists protested their upcoming eviction. More than 250 painters, sculptors, and others are getting the boot from their studio buildings, some of the longest-running artist spaces in the area. Reported the Daily News : "Developer Eli Hamway, who is involved in condominium projects in Williamsburg and Prospect Heights, leased t...

VANISHED A few people have written in to say that Cafe Borgia II has closed. Opened in 1975 by Philip Cardaci, the cafe was located on Prince Street, in that hot-pink building across from what used to be Vesuvio and what used to be Milady's . After more recently losing Caffe Dante and Cafe Figaro , all we had left of the classic Italian Village cafes were Cafe Borgia II and Caffe Reggio. And then there was one. (Am I missing any?) photo via Complete Performer The first Cafe Borgia was opened by Mr. Cardaci's parents in 1959 on the corner of Macdougal and Bleecker Streets. It was forced to close in 2001 after losing its lease. At the time, the Times wrote, "In the 1960's and 1970's, Cafe Borgia was a bohemian's dream. Styled like an Old World cafe with medieval decor, it drew Beat poets like Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg. Edward Albee and Andy Warhol also spent hours there, as did Joan Baez, Joe Gould and James Dean." A regular of the...

In a city rapidly losing its record shops, Academy Records is alive and well on West 18th Street . It's actually crowded on Saturday afternoons with giddy music collectors. (I've been holding this post, unpublished, for quite some time because I'm afraid to jinx the place. But I don't have that kind of power, right? So here goes.) Inside, it feels like New York. Like the real New York we used to know, not so long ago. And it should. Academy's been around since 1977. Here you will find actual New Yorkers. It's as if some giant sifter has panned across the shopping mall of Fifth Avenue, weeded out the tourists and the dullest newbies, and deposited the gold right here. You can tell these people are New Yorkers because they feel like New Yorkers, even if they don't live in New York. They've got an edge to them. An energy. How to describe this? If you don't know what I mean, well, you either know or you don't. I'm telling you, it...

A few holdouts have left the ever-expanding footprint of the Hudson Yards Luxury Zone. You can't blame them for taking the money and running from the nightmare to come. Two guys living on 10th Avenue and West 35th just scored $25 million to leave their tenement. We've been following the fate of the two buildings here. They were only left standing because of these holdouts, stubbornly thwarting Tishman's plans for what once was called the "tallest tower in North America," a.k.a. "Hudson Spire," originally rendered at 1,800 feet -- 4 feet taller than One World Trade Center. With the men moved out, and Taxi Parts gone , the buildings are empty and set for demolition. Does this mean the Spire is back on? A block south, a McDonald's has been acquired by Related --to be demolished and folded into a 3.3 million square foot mixed-use development. (I don't cry for McDonald's, but we're talking about a piece of low-rise property that was a l...

Opening October 15 at the Jonathan LeVine Gallery is Brett Amory's "This Land Is Not For Sale: Forgotten, Past and Foreseeable Futures." Brett Amory, CBGB From High Fructose : "Amory describes his latest series of works as a sort of protest against the transformation of New York’s Lower East Side into a 'gentrified wasteland,' which is changing the social character of the neighborhood." Brett Amory, Bleecker Bob's From Juxtapoz : "Amory will install a faux construction site underpass leading to the gallery to parody the constant sledgehammering of gentrification." In addition, there will be a panel discussion on October 20 that will "bring together some of the legendary figures and activists of the Lower East Side to explore the gentrification and cultural attritioning of this historic district," according to the press release. "This discussion will be moderated by author Alan Kaufman. Sitting on the panel will...

Some time ago I came upon this black and white film taken in 1971 (or, more likely, 1970) from a traffic island on Broadway near 88th Street. It was filmed by Nicholas West . It's in slightly slow motion, so it feels underwaterish. Nothing much happens. People walk across the street or they sit and watch the traffic. Cars go by. The neon sign of the New Yorker cinema blinks off and then on again. On the marquee, a double bill: Pudovkin's "The End of St. Petersburg" with Hani's "Bwana Toshi," subject of a lukewarm 1970 review in the Times . Wrote the reviewer, "In its emotional density and its cool compansion [sic], Hani's eroticism seems a good deal more humane than his humanism. It is also, of course, more erotic." There is nothing apparently erotic about Broadway and 88th Street in the winter of--not 1971--but 1970. It is, however, loaded with humanity.

For a while, I've had a thing for the Elpine drinks stand in Times Square. Long gone from its spot on 46th Street and 7th Avenue, it appears in the background of many old photos and had its big moment in the film Sweet Smell of Success. There's really no information out there about Elpine. They served fruit drinks and hot dogs, among other items. They had two locations, but did not achieve the success of Papaya King and Gray's Papaya . The story of the little stand remained a mystery. Then I got an email from a guy named Al Streit. 1943: John Vachon, via Shorpy Mr. Streit writes: "Elpine Drinks was a business owned by my wife's grandfather and his two brothers. Yes, Elpine: 'el pine' as in pineapple. The name has nothing to do with the Swiss Alps. The Varons were a Spanish-speaking Sephardic family. Originally spelled with an accent mark over the 'o' (Varón), the pronunciation was anglicized to VAIR-un. Three brothers, Joe, Frank,...

After 20 years of working on Wall Street, Chris Arnade walked away in 2012, disillusioned with the business. He kept walking, all the way to the Bronx, with a camera in his hand. In Hunts Point, he got to know and photograph the other humans of New York , the ones at the margins--prostitutes and drug addicts, living in poverty. Collected in a series called " Faces of Addiction ," the images are both beautiful and heartbreaking. Arnade has also photographed the pigeon keepers of New York , the people of Brownsville and East New York , the tricked-out bikes of New York , and much more, including the transgender sex workers of Jackson Heights, Queens. When we look to the Meatpacking District and wonder where did all those girls go -- they went here. all photos by Chris Arnade The following text is excerpted from an essay by Chris Arnade, from his flickr page : At 4:00 am the 7 train over Roosevelt Avenue provides the rhythm for Jackson Heights, Queens. Each train spill...