Discovering Admiral's Row

Here's a few pics from my recent trip to Admiral's Row at the Brooklyn Navy Yards. These historic Civil War mansions once housed the officers of the US Naval Fleet. Basically abandoned since the early 70s, the six houses are in an incredible state of ruin and disrepair, though they have been judged to be of landmark status by the Navy Corp of Engineers. Currently, a battle rages whether to demolish Admiral's Row to make way for a supermarket, or preserve, revitalize and award them with National Historic Register status. Though it can be hard to actually see them amid all the overgrowth, these are beautiful examples of 1860s era architecture. Check my other site, Discovering Admiral's Row, for more pics, which I will be updating as the months grow colder and the buildings become more visible.
metal blinds still intact!

SUN SET

The End of Tin Pan Alley

Just as New York's economy crashes, Tin Pan Alley, which helped make the City a haven for good times, hits the fiscal chopping block. As originally reported by Brooks of Sheffield at Lost City,the historic block of five buildings on West 28^th Street that constituted Tin Pan Alley are up for sale. That’s just like New York under Bloomberg, isn’t it? Abandoning the historic parts of the City for more glass and steel condos. But it's gone too far. Surely the ghosts of Irving Berlin, George and Ira Gershwin, Hoagy Carmichael, Scott Joplin, Cole Porter, Fats Waller and the other greats who created America’s original soundtrack are flinching in their skeletons. I spoke with one resident senior citizen sitting on her stoop who said she fully expects the tenants to be either evicted or bought out prior to the block being razed.

From Lost City: “The listing has been up since September. One can only hope that, with the current economy, the seller doesn't have a chance in hell of making that price. Lost City has previously decried the fact that these buildings—once home to music publishers that fostered the talents of songwriters Gershwin, Berlin, Donaldson, Carmichael, Warren, Waller, Kahn, Cohan, Mercer, Youmans and dozens more—have been left to rot, with nothing marking their significance to American culture save a small plaque. They don't enjoy landmark status. No pocket museum or tourism bureau marks their presence. It's a positive shanda!"

Here is a partial list of standards that were written in Tin Pan Alley:

* "The Band Played On," 1895 * "A Hot Time In The Old Town Tonight," 1896 * "Hello! Ma Baby (Hello Ma Ragtime Gal)," 1899 * "Bill Bailey, Won't You Please Come Home," 1902 * "In The Good Old Summertime," 1902 * "Give My Regards To Broadway," 1904 * "Shine On Harvest Moon," 1908 * "Take Me Out To The Ballgame," 1908 * "By The Light Of The Silvery Moon," 1909 * "Down By The Old Mill Stream," 1910 * "Let Me Call You Sweetheart," 1910 * "Alexander's Ragtime Band," 1911 * "God Bless America," 1918 * "Swanee," 1919 * "Way Down Yonder In New Orleans," 1922 * "Sweet Georgia Brown," 1925 * "Ain't She Sweet," 1927 * "Happy Days Are Here Again," 1930

A view inside 49 West 28th...

The tile over which the Gershwins once tapped their toes...

Village Cigars Then and Now

View down 7th avenue at Christopher, circa early 70s.
And my pic taken today. I can in no way match the beauty of shot 1, I think it was taken with a 50mm lens; I am using wide angle 10-22. Plus, color of shot 1 gorgeous, perhaps its the light (cloudy day?) or the nature of film vs digital. But you can see that not much has changed on this one corner of the Village, unlike the rest of our town. A Trump black hole rises in the background in my shot, the old pic shows the inlaid brick of the street which has now been paved over.

MacDougal St Changes

Is this the infamous London graffiti artist Banksy and one of his rats or an anti-Fox tirade?
Minetta Tavern sign gets new paint and new neon.
Mass market Mexican food chain Qdoba replaces the venerable Figaro Cafe, but doesn't bother to remove the Fig's awnings..if they are this damn cheap, the food must reek.. 
And Barbie takes Manhattan

Hess Oil/Village Cigars

From New York Photo: “A mysterious triangular mosaic [see below] is set in the sidewalk in front of Village Cigars. It reads: "Property of the Hess Estate Which Has Never Been Dedicated for Public Purposes." This tiny piece of land is the result of a dispute between a former owner, the David Hess estate, of Philadelphia and NYC. Hess owned the Voorhis apartment building at that corner which had been condemned to build a subway line. The estate refused to surrender a remaining triangle, 500 square inches, the smallest piece of private property in the city. In 1938 they sold the plot to Village Cigars for $1,000. Cracked and worn, it remains a testimony to one small triumph over the city of New York...”

I don't know what up with that crutch....

SoHo coffee

Real New York coffee complete with old alpha/numeric phone number. Somewhere on lower Sullivan Street. And thanks to everyone re the nice commens for my Mom. She is 83, ill with all kinds of stuff, but she's hanging in there. What a drag it is getting old.

Miracle Reducers

Greenwich Village Daily Photo is down in N.C. looking after his Mom this week. So here are some pics of New Orleans from Mom's computer, taken pre Katrina, around 2003.

Coney Island Texas Lunch?

Fabulous small business signage from crumbling Scranton, PA, the boyhood home of future vice president Joe Biden. Ya gotta wonder, though, “Coney Island Texas Lunch”? Scranton is rumored to become a bedroom community of Hoboken, NJ, which is across the river from Manhattan.
Plans are afoot (or they were before the financial meltdown) to build a high speed train between Hoboken and Scranton.

The city is an old world beauty, full of gorgeous pre WW2 architecture, gorgeous Gothic churches, a university campus, and all these terrific small businesses.

Ocean Grove, NJ 1950

Charley and Ben. No doubt, delivery men of some sort. Mail carriers maybe? Milkmen? Must be cold outside by the looks of Ben's scarf. Taken in an old diner in Ocean Grove, NJ. A pic of a pic. A seaside town with history.

Pearl Street Ghosts

Witness a survivor. This lone facade at 211 Pearl Street in the Financial District was declared landmark status last year, after a long battle. The New Yorker and other publications chronicled the building's unusual tale: built circa 1840, it passed through various hands and businesses, was rumoured to be the birthplace of Herman Melville, and when its destruction was eminent, a weird, seemingly occult symbol was found buried in a load bearing wall. No one knew what the oblong shaped triangle meant, and each of its side was inlaid with a different material. Anyway, it was found that the developers were using state grant money to destroy, then rebuild the site, and was thus 211 deserved local review: landmark status. But only for the facade! So now when you walk down Pearl Street you see this ancient facade tacked to the front of yet another sparkling, faceless, soulless, Financial District behemoth. No one ever did figure out the meaning of the symbol, however.

Somewhere...Upper East Side

Hey, I can't be slumming all the time in my GV hood!

Eliane adds: "I spy Tudor City with its little park... I spy the UN... I spy the East River... I spy Rossevelt Island... I spy the Queensboro Bridge?... I spy Queens..."

Music Madness since 1958

The Music Inn, located at 169 West 4th between 6th and 7th Avenues, is another Village institution, though to the casual passerby the place is an unknown oddity. Presenting a classic Village façade to the busy street outside, the Music Inn is chock full of musical instruments taken from the world over. Filled to the rafters with zithers, sitars, balalaikas, horns, keyboards, dilubas, bells, guitars, mandolins, gongs, hand drums, keyboards, various stringed and hundreds of rare, unique and unclassifiable instruments, the Music Inn has been in business since 1958. (the Music Inn was featured in an episode of the Naked City, starring Alan Arkin)

Owner Jeff is an old school, warm hearted kind of guy who has seen every era of Village change, from the ‘60s folk music boom to the ‘70s disco plunge to today’s gentrification rage. Back in the early '60s, Bob Dylan lived a few doors down at 161 West 4th, and was a regular patron, buying harmonicas and “100s of records,” Jeff recalls. Today, Jeff’s vinyl LPs (10,000 and counting) fill The Music Inn’s basement, though his stock is currently off limits while he tidies up the downstairs.

Jeff employs five workers, though he could obviously handle the place himself. He enjoys having them around; one employee has even created the Music Inn comic book series, featuring Jeff and his son. Jeff is working on the latest comic himself, concocting a story where George Carlin hangs with George Bush. Yea!

The Music Inn doesn’t have a website yet, but Jeff is working on it.

Along the Hudson

Something Special

Lenny Cecere runs a Greenwich Village institution called Something Special. Here, amid the bric-a-brac, percolating coffee and candy for sale, the 82-year old Matt Lauer look-alike rents mailboxes, performs notary services and distributes sage wisdom and sly humor to the many folks who use Something Special as both local watering (or caffeine) hole and hangout. The store sits on the street level floor of Lenny's landmark-designated building (at Houston and MacDougal), and is popular among SoHo's rich and famous who regard Lenny's mailboxes as their personal address away from home. The Beastie Boys, Sarah Jessica Parker and Matthew Broderick, Patti Smith, Famke Janssen and other showbiz notables can regularly be seen picking up their mail at Lenny's. Sarah Jessica Parker even served coffee in years past when her schedule in the city was less than sexy. A typical day at Something Special finds Lenny holding court and serving coffee as fellow seniors -- like 'Philly' DeCicco and his brother Jimmy, who in the '70s were on a first name basis with Sullivan Street mobster Vinnie 'The Chin' Gigante and Frank Sinatra -- shoot the breeze, argue about the Mets and Yankees or pass a summer day watching the endless people parade that courses down Houston Street.

After completing his army tour of duty in '45 and marrying Lucy Iannattone, Lenny trained at RCA's school for radio electronics at West 4th and 8th Avenue. He worked for Kodak as an electronics and machine maintenance technician for some 25 years during which time he began collecting radios. One day Lenny surprised me with a beautiful old Zenith tube radio from the '50s. Returning from the basement he unearthed more goodies: a crusty 1970s era Audiovox AM/FM tabletop, a nondescript '80s shortwave, a nifty looking RCA solid state and a truly space-age low profile WestClox model. All of Lenny's radios work wonderfully, you can almost hear broadcasts from decades past emitting from their ancient facades. Lenny still holds court, so when you visit the Village, walk down to 51 MacDougal.

At Lincoln Center

The subway entrance to Lincoln Center at 66th Street is covered in these cool inlaid murals. I think they represent characters from particular operas, but not sure. Do you recognize either of these two? Calling all opera fans!

Bea the Wonder Dog

I take weekends in Princeton, home of Bea the wonder pup. Here she is, tugging at my girlfriend's hair...

Last of the HoJo's

To those under 30, heck, to those under 25, "Howard Johnsons" means nothing. Howard Johnson's was one of the first national hotel chains, and their calling card -- yummy ice cream -- assured familes of a good time even if they were only pulling off the road for a meal. HoJo's bright orange facades could be seen on Main Street as well as along state highways (we're talking pre-Interstate). The Times Square HoJo's closed in '04, I think. On its final day they were even selling the menus. I love the bold neon, the whacky 70s era floor tile, and the 40s era art deco styled "Howard Johnson's" entrance tile. By the time this HoJo's closed the food was horrible and crackheads and hookers held court in the bathrooms, but it still looked magnificent to me.
70s green and orange!

Like so much in old New York these days, the party' s over...