Vanishing New York Backup

The following is a press release from the Small Business Congress Candidates rally behind call to Freeze all Commercial Evictions Last Chance to Save Mom & Pop businesses on the road to extinction. Last Wednesday, on the steps of City Hall, independent-minded candidates running for office called for an Emergency Freeze of Evictions of All Commercial tenants. Lead by Mayoral candidate Sal Albanese, Public Advocate candidate David Eisenbach, and six council candidates, they claimed City Hall was not doing enough to pass legislation to protect small businesses from the sky-high rent increases forcing them to close in record numbers. Small Business Congress spokesperson Steven Barrison went further and accused the city’s leadership--Mayor de Blasio, Public Advocate James and Speaker Mark-Viverito--of joining big real estate in “rigging the system” to stop any legislation which gave rights to commercial owners to negotiate fair lease terms. Barrison stated: “the crisis facing ou

Over the years, I've profiled the work of a few miniaturists on this blog ( Alan Wolfson , Randy Hage , Nicholas Buffon ), artists who render the city smaller -- and thus preserve some facsimile of what was. This week, Sensitive Skin magazine shares the work of Dennis Gordon , who created a whole Lower East Side in miniature -- or, at least, a dreamlike representation of what the Lower East Side once was. Here's Gordon: " I felt extremely comfortable in the midst of neglect and decay. The abandonment, loneliness, and isolation inside the structures grounded me despite the risk (though the buildings were abandoned by society, I was hardly alone). I discovered an escape from the boredom of inhabited space, and grew lost within the wealth of bygone architecture and design. I felt like I was participating in some grand installation of living art. The decay was dynamic, the interiors different if I revisit them in a year. New levels of rust and mold. Brick disintegrati

The Second Avenue San Loco taco joint supplied my first meal in the East Village, 23 years ago. I ate those crunchy tacos on my fire escape after a long day of moving in. Back then, it was across Second Avenue, a hole in the wall bedecked in yellow and red. The place was always full of customers. On its last night, it was packed. And now it's gone. The rent was too damn high. In the plastic-covered windows, the owners have posted an "I Love NY" sign. The neon lights are dark. I talked to co-owner Jill Hing last year about San Loco's struggles . She told me: "There are many factors that contribute to our struggle to survive--and the noose definitely keeps tightening. Our customer base has been mostly squeezed out of this neighborhood as a consequence of hyper-gentrification. Rent is a constant source of stress. In our case, as with many long-standing businesses, we are at the mercy of the landlord and live in fear of our next rent renewal." That f

Tribeca Citizen reports: "SP’s Nuts & Candy, the store at 166 Church that you probably know as We Are Nuts About Nuts, is closing at the end of July." Why is it closing? Is it because people don't buy enough nuts? Is it because tastes have changed? No, it's because "the landlord didn’t seem to want him to renew." As the Times wrote in 2010: "There are plenty of places to buy nuts in Manhattan, from Whole Foods to CVS to the occasional subway platform. But if you want them fresh, perhaps even still warm, from the roaster, SP’s Nuts and Candy may well be your only option. Once upon a time, shops like this were a staple of city life, quick stops for a cheap, salty snack and a whiff of nuttiness. Today, SP’s owner, Michael Yeo, is keeping alive a New York tradition that has all but vanished over the past several decades, one he simply happened into."

Come celebrate the publication of Vanishing New York: How a Great City Lost Its Soul . Where: Housing Works Bookstore Cafe 126 Crosby St, NYC When: Thursday, July 27, 7:00pm Books will be on sale. I'll be reading and signing. There will be refreshments. And--bonus!--downtown legend, the great Penny Arcade, will be performing. Looking forward to seeing you there! View the invite and RSVP on Facebook

For the past 10 years, since July 2007, I've written this blog openly under a pen name. Now, as my book is about to publish on July 25, I figured it's time to come out of the blog closet. A decade is long enough. I tell my story to Michael Schulman in this week's New Yorker magazine, on the pages of the "Talk of the Town."

On E. 6th Street, someone has spray-painted a big yellow heart encircling the words "Croman + Rikers": The graffiti refers to the local " Bernie Madoff of Landlords ," as the attorney general called him. He is serving a year in jail at Rikers Island after being charged with 20 felonies. (Thanks Michael Hirsch for the tip.)

So this building is gone. Was it the last of the scrappy meatpacking buildings? The only one not to be demolished or gutted and glossed? It had sat empty for years, blue and gloomy, waiting for slaughter. Nothing this close to the High Line is allowed to live. I liked walking around it, behind it, where people rarely walked. The tourists and shoppers, so cautious, stayed away from it. It must have frightened them in its ragged old bricks. Now that it's gone, the tourists and shoppers are suddenly there. What's coming to take its place? As the big machines dig their hole, a sign on the horizon urges, "GLOSSIER." Of course. The new building must be glossy. Made of glass and twist. Even though so many glass towers are bad for city life . The shiny box coming to 40-56 Tenth Avenue has been named " Solar Carve Tower ." Because, in the deadly age of global warming, the sun worshippers will not be deterred. “In addition to producing a faceted, gem

Ray Beauty Supply had been on 8th Avenue off Times Square for over 50 years. They claimed to be the oldest beauty supply shop in the city. They had personality. And a great sign. They vanished in 2013 and the storefront sat empty for awhile. Recently, I noticed it's been turned into this chain that sells "artisanal" gelato. They have dozens of "boutiques" all over the world.

"The Arcades Project: Contemporary Art and Walter Benjamin" is on view until August 6 at the Jewish Museum . It's about wandering the city, with works by various artists, and poems by Kenneth Goldsmith. Here's a good review to read . One room features New York City miniatures by Nicholas Buffon . There's Katz's deli, the "new" Odessa ( the old one vanished ), Stonewall, and the Coffee Shop on E. 14th Street. (Buffon has also done a mini of Sophie's bar , but it isn't here.)  According to the words on the wall, they are “panoramas of the unspectacular: instead of offering escape to a faraway place or time, they radiate tenderness for the careworn, disheveled places in which we live.” (Although, in the tenement window above Odessa, there's a Hillary for president poster. A faraway place and time.) I like miniature New York City dioramas. Many times on this blog I've featured the works of Randy Hage , who perfectly capt

The following is a guest post by Michelle Standley: Over twenty years ago, my friend, Gerry Ranson, a British-born illustrator, did a series of pen-and-ink illustrations of dozens of small retail and service shops that he had noticed during long walks throughout Manhattan: shoe repair shops; flower and accessory stores; sandwich and coffee shops; locksmiths and dry cleaners; barbershops, boutiques, and book stalls. What they all had in common is that they were tiny, really small, sometimes no more than a few feet wide and not much higher than a few feet above your head. And for all appearances they looked as if they had wedged themselves into the narrow, forgotten spaces left between two skyscrapers. Syed Candy Store at 1236 Lexington Avenue and East 84th Street Gerry fell in love with these quirky little shops and deeply admired their plucky owners. He called the project, “Squeezing Out a Living in New York City,” based not only on their appearance but also on his conversatio

There was a multi-alarm fire this morning at Grove and Bleecker, with large clouds of black smoke billowing out from what spectators assumed to be the basement-level 49 Grove nightclub. No one in the building appeared to be hurt. New York describes 49 Grove: "This subterranean lair reeks of exclusivity—from the seasonal stretch limo for winter smokers to the chilly PRIVÉ sign posted on the VIP door year round. Inside, uptown Ivy Leaguers and their less intellectual but equally moneyed cohorts people-watch from the plush velvet couches lining the stone walls." The FDNY responded rapidly. They broke open the door, taking a circular saw to it. When the door opened, the street filled with smoke. The firefighters smashed and ripped out the front door of the Scotch & Soda clothing chain store on the corner. This is the location of the shop that took over Rebel Rebel Records' space when they were pushed out. One Villager in the crowd noted, "I

VANISHING The last Love store in New York City is closing. photo & tip from Mimi Fischer: @mimi_yes_and_u After 35 years, the Love store (discount health and beauty aids) on West 72nd Street will be closing on June 25. Love was once a local, homegrown chain with 35 locations around the city. In the late 1990s, the bigger Duane Reade bought up a bunch of Loves . New Yorkers were not happy about it. One customer told the Times , ''It's just another megastore thing, and nobody likes it.'' In their goodbye note, prominently displayed in their window, the Love people write: "The climate for small businesses like ours has fallen precipitously. This reality is ever present as you stroll along the streets of a city marked by empty storefronts where thriving independent businesses once stood. Many have or will be replaced by national retail conglomerates or consolidated by 'big box' stores. Small businesses like ours also see customers come into t

For years, we've been watching the jet-fueled luxurification of western Bleecker Street , a blitz that started with the biting of a pink-frosted cupcake , pushed out dozens of small businesses--from Nusraty Afghan Imports to the great Manatus diner --and has now collapsed into high-rent blight. Last week, State Senator Brad Hoylman published a report on Bleecker's blight and offered solutions, including getting rid of tax deductions for landlords who maintain persistent vacancies--often in the hopes of attracting a national or international chain. Now, in today's Times , Steven Kurutz thoroughly tells the tale of "How Bleecker went from quintessential Greenwich Village street, with shops like Condomania and Rebel Rebel Records, to a destination for Black Card-wielding 1-percenters, to its current iteration as a luxury blightscape." The story starts with that cupcake, spikes on Marc Jacobs, and descends into luxury waste. Kurutz notes: "While quirky