I have this thing about doorways. I'm inspired by a book I once saw in London called, you guessed it, London Doorways. Simple enough idea, but the Village has doorways (and buildings attached) dating from the 1870s and they are beautiful - even with the graffiti!
Next door to Sals is another Manganaro where they make a famous six foot long hero sandwich. For years the two families didn't speak --- over rights to that famous triple decker -- but they've recently buried the hatchet and patched up the family. Good eats! See Brooks Lost City for more on those fabulous, feudin' Manganaros.
McSorley's, the oldest bar in Manhattan, and thus...the world!
Moishes, the oldest bakery on Second Avenue
Joe's, a really old bar on E. 6th Street
Lower Manhattan looking north photographed from the 47th floor of the Chase Manhattan building.
New Yorkers can finally hold their heads high. Mayor Bloomberg and his developer cronies have done us another favor, replacing those ugly old green monsters that used to sell magazines and gum with these beautiful new and improved Newsstands Moderne! Look at that chrome, that lovely smoked glass (corner of 7th and Christopher across from the venerable Village Cigars). It doesn't look like it holds as many actual magazines as the old green monster, not to mention its flimsy looking construction, but hey, that's progress! What's next, chrome port-a-potties? We can only hope.
The Jefferson Market Library, originally a courthouse, was designed in the Victorian Gothic style and was erected between 1875 and 1877 alongside an adjacent prison and market. It cost $360,000 to build and housed a police court, a civil court, and a basement where prisoners were held before they headed off to jail.
The building was continuously lauded for its unique and splendid architecture and was often touted as one of the most beautiful buildings in the country at the turn of the century. The courthouse was the site of a number of famous trials, including the murder trial of Harry Thaw, who was accused of killing architect Stanford White. The famous trial, which also involved chorus girl Evelyn Nesbit, became the subject for E.L. Doctorow’s novel Ragtime, which was eventually turned into an award-winning Broadway musical.
After decades of hosting a number of other sensational cases, the Jefferson Market Library became
After several years of deterioration, a plan was hatched to demolish this breathtaking building, which by this time lacked its original splendor. Concerned
Funny daschund in Washington Square Park
Marcel, our building mascot
Inquisitive fat cat on Hudson Street: "so what are you going to give me?"
Lazy rubbing cat on Hudson Street
From Jeremiah’s Vanishing New York: "As the Cooper Square Hotel has risen and spread, it has engulfed the block of Bowery between 5th and 6th Streets. Two original buildings remain: the tenement home of poet Hettie Jones and That history has been painstakingly uncovered by artist and
Originally called 391 Bowery, #35 was owned in the early 1800s by Nicholas William Stuyvesant, great-grandson of Peter Stuyvesant. When he died in 1833, the building passed through several hands, including an undertaker, a teacher, a hotelier, and a saloon owner.
In the 20th century, it became a home for artists. Painter and photographer J. Forrest Vey lived there after WWII. He rented the upstairs dormer rooms for $5 apiece to people like Joel Grey, star of Cabaret, and Claude Brown, author of Manchild in the Promised Land.
Mr. Vey once broke into the attic, which had been sealed ever since a man hanged himself there. He found Civil War newspapers, a stove-pipe hat, a sign that said "5-cent Hot Whiskey."
Beat poet Diane DiPrima moved into #35 in 1962. There she wrote many poems, and her memories of the place can be found in her memoir, Recollections of My Life as a Woman. She writes to Sally, "We were visited there by probably hundreds of artists and art patrons, including William Burroughs, Cecil Taylor, Frank O’Hara," John Weiners, Herbert Huncke, and Warhol Superstar Billy Name, who lived with DiPrima for a time.
Billy Name recalled in an email to Sally, "wooden broad plank floors and a very comfortable homey feeling from all the wood and open space and kitchen. and, as opposed to all the tenement buildings in its surrounds it actually looked like a 'house' from earlier
Finally, the building made it into the news in 2004 (The Villager and the Times) when owner Cooper Union opted to paint over a 9/11 memorial mural and make room for advertising, against protests from the locals.
The memorial has been erased and there won't be any bronze plaques. There probably won't even be a building to hang it on. #35 is one of a few lots on the block bought last year by a group of Cooper Square Hotel investors. One investor told The Observer, 'These lots were to become, possibly, a restaurant-lounge and/or expansion to the Cooper hotel so we (Cooper investors) would be able to leverage the brand, amenities and staff of the
In her memoir, DiPrima wrote, 'From the moment when I first laid eyes on 35 Cooper Square, I knew it was the fulfillment of all those fantasies of art and the artist's life, la vie de boheme, harking all the way back to my high school years or before.'
What will happen to such fantasies--and their dreamers--when all the 35 Cooper Squares of our city have been demolished and
They are if they get their prescriptions filled at Block Drugs on
Jeremiah’s Vanishing New York: At the corner of 2nd and 6th, there’s Block Drug Stores, a.k.a.
Babs and Lucy were selling killer homemade cupcakes, chocoholic treats and coconut bars when I happened upon them along 9th avenue and 14th in Chelsea. I bought some bars, my galpal and I wolfed them down, and Babs and Lucy allowed this photograph.
From anti-KFC ads to get out the vote warnings, Manhattan has every kind of sign imaginable, and if you look closely, the city gives up its ancient signage as well. First up, PETA's campaign against Kentucky Fried's use of something weird in the batter. Click pic to enlarge..
"Bottled Porter, Ale and Cider," circa 1920, Macdougal and Houston.
Zenith COLOR service sign, Lower East Side, circa early '60s.
Wha? No more Chinese New Year?
Shackman Favors and Novelties, circa 1890s, Fifth Avenue.
Heller Paper Cordage Co, Tribeca, circa 1960.
Near Houston and Broadway.
Hey, pigs are critters too! This lip smacking swine adorns the wall at Esposito's Pork Shop...and that will lead to my next historical bldg post! "Sausage taste good..swine taste good," John Travolta Pulp Fiction.
They're back! Dogs love water, and this one is splayed out in the local dog run tub.
