Vanishing New York Backup

In the East Village. This is depressing. Before: After: What else is there to say? Here's the story -- and the history -- of the International Bar . (And, yes, a variation of it lives on a couple blocks south on First Avenue. And, yes, this wasn't the original original . But this good old space? Gone to bubbles.)

Today I wrote an essay for The Atlantic on the folding of Amazon in New York City and the activists' celebration party last night in Queens. It begins, "A piñata hangs from a tree on Diversity Plaza in Jackson Heights, Queens. It is decorated with the face of Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos and by the end of Thursday night it will meet the fate of all piñatas." Read the rest here

UN-VANISHING Some good news for a change. Left Bank Books is returning to brick-and-mortar. On their website , they announce: "We’re ecstatic to announce the upcoming re-opening of Left Bank Books in a new Greenwich Village location at 41 Perry Street." Left Bank shuttered in 2016 after struggling in its second location . Prior to that, the shop had been on West 4th Street for many years and was kicked out by a rent hike --their neighbor, Lee's Laundry , was also pushed out. The double space became a cafe and then that shuttered. Something else moved in and I think that might have shuttered, too. I don't know what's there now. As we see over and over, stable, long-term small businesses get pushed out and then the space becomes unstable, filling and emptying again and again. It's not often that a lost bookstore returns. Let's hope Left Bank has found a decent landlord and newfound stability. They'll be on Perry Street between West 4th Street ...

VANISHING It's yet another nail in the coffin for the very dead St. Mark's Place. After 36 years, St. Mark's Comics will be closing at the end of February. They announced the news today on Twitter and explained why on their Facebook page: "There are lots of obstacles to running a retail storefront in NYC; too many of them at once to fight, and after 36 pretty intense years, not enough left to fight them." What remains? The Grassroots Tavern , shuttered last year after 42 years, sits empty. Trash & Vaudeville was kicked off the street. So was St. Mark's Bookshop--and then again. Kim's Video got the boot. A lot of record shops were lost. Dojo's is long gone. The comic book shop was one of the last of its kind, a dusty, idiosyncratic leftover from the old street, when it was still part and production of the counterculture. But there is little counterculture left in the broken East Village. A century of rebelliousness down the drain. ...

Last week I reported that Westsider Books was closing . This week we heard the good news that it has been saved. The following is a guest post by Janice Isaac: Westsider Books is a wonderful used bookstore stuffed with books in every possible space. They could no longer afford to stay open, and locals were devastated. Apparently, non-locals were as well. Bobby Panza, a West Sider who doesn’t even know the owners personally, but who knows the store and values its uniqueness, started a GoFundMe to help keep this treasure alive . He’d been inspired by owner Dorian Thornley commenting about being able to stay open if they had $50,000 from crowdfunding. Thornly says he was “amazed and shocked...quite taken aback” when he saw, on Facebook, the campaign to save the store. The GoFundMe quickly reached its goal (thanks to donations ranging from very modest to several in the thousands), and Westsider Books will stay. Locals are overjoyed. I live in the neighborhood and have loved walking...

VANISHING Located at 81st and Broadway, the great Westsider Books has just announced they will be closing. Another heartbreak for New York City bibliophiles. Owned by Dorian Thornley and Bryan Gonzalez, the shop opened in the 1980s. They call it "the last used bookstore on the Upper West Side." But the neighborhood keeps on changing, filling up with more money and more chains. “It’s all different now," Gonzalez told Narratively a few years ago. "There’s more money here, and the people have changed, and so have their tastes. Not that long ago, the city gave you a sense of belonging to something unique, exciting, cosmopolitan. Now what you find here, I can find in a Jersey mall." Westsider is a wonderful, authentically New York shop, packed from floor to ceiling with books. When I was taking classes in the neighborhood, I would stop in every week and always walked out with a book in hand. Recently, Westsider had a cameo in the excellent and very New ...

After more than a year of speculation , Cornelia Street Cafe has announced they will be closing. PRLog reports the cafe "will close its red doors permanently on January 2nd, 2019." Owner Robin Hirsch wrote, "I am sad to say that I am losing my oldest child. Cornelia has brought me both joy and pain, and it is with a broken heart that I must bid her adieu." The reason for the closure has not been revealed. Last year, the Times reported on the cafe's troubles: "Their rent for the restaurant and basement space, at $33,000 a month, is 77 times what it was when the club opened (that’s not adjusting for inflation — but, in the name of consistency, they’re not charging $77 for a croissant)." DNAInfo noted that the cafe was struggling--especially with landlord Mark Scharfman, "a frequent fixture on various 'Worst Landlord' lists." Hirsch told the blog at the time, "If I'm 10 minutes late with my rent, he threatens me wit...