Entries tagged with “neighborhoods” from Patell and Waterman's History of New York
LOST NEW YORK
Just returned my last rental to Cinema Nolita -- Darjeeling Limited, which I watched with my daughters the other night, and returned on time! The store kept renting as long as they possibly could, signing up new members, too. The fundraisers and almost-midnight movies brought in enough to cover most of the back rent, but the space will be turned over to a new tenant shortly. Probably a luxury boutique -- exactly what we need in the middle of a recession! Nothing creates neighborhood community like a good luxury boutique!
Snarkiness aside, there's some good news: they didn't have to sell off the collection. A majority of the staff was there tonight, packing boxes. (The scene almost made me weepy!) They were quick to offer reassurances that the business would continue in some form -- rentals brought to your doorstep by bike messenger? I'll look forward to seeing what comes next.
To Michael, Eleonore, Claire, Chris and all the rest, from this corner of Little Italy we say, "Thanks!"
Just returned my last rental to Cinema Nolita -- Darjeeling Limited, which I watched with my daughters the other night, and returned on time! The store kept renting as long as they possibly could, signing up new members, too. The fundraisers and almost-midnight movies brought in enough to cover most of the back rent, but the space will be turned over to a new tenant shortly. Probably a luxury boutique -- exactly what we need in the middle of a recession! Nothing creates neighborhood community like a good luxury boutique!
Snarkiness aside, there's some good news: they didn't have to sell off the collection. A majority of the staff was there tonight, packing boxes. (The scene almost made me weepy!) They were quick to offer reassurances that the business would continue in some form -- rentals brought to your doorstep by bike messenger? I'll look forward to seeing what comes next.
To Michael, Eleonore, Claire, Chris and all the rest, from this corner of Little Italy we say, "Thanks!"
Bowery Boogie has faithfully covered a sad saga in my neighborhood: the imminent closing of our local video rental store, Cinema Nolita. (Even the Times has chimed in with lamentations.) Formerly in a tiny, exposed-brick sliver of a storefront on Elizabeth, for the last year and a half or so the store has occupied much roomier digs on Mulberry, between Broome and Kenmare. Not quite Nolita, but whatever -- we don't dig real estate broker neologisms anyway, and a store this quaint makes the "Nolita" seem kind of ironic to boot. The new location should have been good for the store, but apparently the customer base didn't expand as much as hoped. They've been in business only for seven years but have the feel of a community mainstay nonetheless, at least for those of us who make several trips there a week. (They have over 8,000 members on record.)
Cinema Nolita is one of the last of a dying breed: a video store that not only still stocks plenty of VHS tapes (much to the delight of my 13-year-old daughter, who has a huge case of technological nostalgia) but has a large and varied DVD collection that leans toward classics and foreign while still covering all the requisite new release bases. Perhaps even more importantly, it's the kind of store where knowledgable employees remember your name and call up your membership before you get to the counter, and where they remember your rental history and taste and may even warn you away from a turkey -- though they'll not sneer at your guilty pleasures or shame you if you have to ask who directed what (since many films are filed by director's last name). They screen cult favorites late on weekend nights, sometimes with directors present, always with cheap beer. Staff members produced hand-made posters for these films to display in the front window.
When Cinema Nolita loses its spot on Mulberry this month -- which seems to be a foregone conclusion -- it will be the first time since the early 1980s that I haven't had a video rental store at least a bike's ride from my house. And though I'm guilty, like many, of shelling out my monthly $16 to Netflix, those little red envelopes have never replaced the need for a local store. Your queue rarely matches your mood, for one thing, or a desire for instant gratification (last night I wanted to see Sherman Alexie's Smoke Signals, for instance, which I brought home on VHS) might not even be able to find fulfillment in streaming options.
And in addition to a knowledgable, friendly, human staff, there are other things Netflix will never replace, just like Amazon -- for all the wonders of one-click used book shopping -- will never completely replace the emotional experience of a bookstore. Browsing. Real time. Handling objects. Reading jacket blurbs. Discovering something you never knew existed, or being reminded of your favorite filmgoing experiences of the past and returning to them on a whim. Overhearing someone else's conversation about what they'll rent, or seeing a bit of something on the store screen while you wait in line, and making a note to check it out later.
Cinema Nolita seems to be about $8K in the hole. The "Store for Rent" sign in the window is down, but I'm taking that to mean the space will have a new tenant soon. The owner and staff had originally announced a fire sale on the collection, but rethought that plan and now hope to keep their library together -- perhaps to find a new space, perhaps a new business model. They want, above all, to maintain a presence in a neighborhood community they've helped to organize.
How to give back? Anthology Film Archives will be hosting a benefit screening, TONIGHT (8/15) at 10 pm, of Abel Ferrara's Bad Lieutenant (1992), starring Harvey Keitel, with Ferrara director present for discussion and Q&A. If this event goes well, we're told, there may be another Ferrara event in store next weekend. $15 donation. "Abel uses the video store as his library," says one store employee. "He's been such an advocate of saving the shop, and he said, 'Anything I can do to help in any way. We've gotta save this shop, you know, man, we've gotta save it.'" She admits Ferrara has been known to keep films out well past their due date, but "by doing these screenings he's essentially paying his late fees."
Anthology Film Archives
32 Second Avenue
New York, NY 10003
(212) 505-5181
Also, on Monday (8/17), neighborhood hotspot Santos Party House will host a musical extravaganza to benefit the store. The Beets and The Virgins will play, followed by an Animal Collective DJ Set featuring Avey Tare, Geologist, and Deakin. $20 donation, doors @ 8 pm.
Santos Party House
100 Lafayette St
New York, NY 10013
(212) 584-5494
PLUS: You can donate to the store directly from its website -- or drop by and drop off a check!
Photo from Bowery Boogie's Flickr pool.
A few entries back I posted a short film, 3rd Avenue El, which I'd run across thanks to Bowery Boys. When I first watched it, I noticed at the end a tag indicating the film had been posted to the web by weirdovideo.com, which sounded like something worth checking out. Turns out they do have weirdo videos of all stripes, though I was particularly interested in their archive of vintage New York films. They've got an eclectic selection, ranging from classic Edison shorts, to footage of a dangerous baby elephant being put down at Coney Island, to the trailer for a mid-century meta-porn extravaganza called The Smut Peddler.
One of the most rewarding things I watched (next to The Smut Peddler, of course) was an early-1960s short called How to Live in a City -- a sort of Jane Jacobs-esque brief on behalf of well-designed urban public space. It's clearly coming from a moment when public space in the city is highly contested (though one could argue public space is always highly contested in a city like this). The filmmakers oppose new directions in public and private housing that favor individualism over community: the "private terrace" is a blight on traditional neighborhood life, while the stoop is idealized. There's great footage here of several sites -- Washington Square Park, Mulberry Street during San Gennaro, Seagram Plaza, the MoMA sculpture garden, and long-vanished bocce courts at Houston and Bowery, where old Italian men, we're told, were happily teaching their game to new Puerto Rican immigrants. Now their more fortunate descendants can buy grass-fed beef and dandelion greens at Whole Foods. Enjoy!
One of the most rewarding things I watched (next to The Smut Peddler, of course) was an early-1960s short called How to Live in a City -- a sort of Jane Jacobs-esque brief on behalf of well-designed urban public space. It's clearly coming from a moment when public space in the city is highly contested (though one could argue public space is always highly contested in a city like this). The filmmakers oppose new directions in public and private housing that favor individualism over community: the "private terrace" is a blight on traditional neighborhood life, while the stoop is idealized. There's great footage here of several sites -- Washington Square Park, Mulberry Street during San Gennaro, Seagram Plaza, the MoMA sculpture garden, and long-vanished bocce courts at Houston and Bowery, where old Italian men, we're told, were happily teaching their game to new Puerto Rican immigrants. Now their more fortunate descendants can buy grass-fed beef and dandelion greens at Whole Foods. Enjoy!
On public art in Queens: An excerpt from Public Art New York, by architect Jean Parker Phifer and photographer Francis Dzikowski [Newyorkology]Coke with that slice? DEA busts drug-dealing pizza parlor in the Bronx. [Animal]
A guide to Boerum Hill [Lost City]
Images of America publishes new volume on St. George, Staten Island. Plus: "town" or "neighborhood"? [Walking Is Transportation]
The making of Manhattanville: What will be lost when Columbia expands? [Manhattanville.net, via an older post on JVNY]
Bonus: From my own back yard -- if you haven't seen Jon Kessler's amazing installation "Kessler's Circus" at Deitch Projects (76 Grand Street) you've only got through tomorrow. Here's an older VBS.TV documentary series on Kessler, set in his long-time Williamsburg studio, that should give you a feel for the work.
Image from Newyorkology:
Flight
James Brooks, Artist, 1938-40
Collection of the City of New York
Marine Air Terminal
Delano & Aldrich, Architects, 1937-40; Restoration by Beyer Blinder Belle, Architects, 1995-6
West end of LaGuardia Airport, Flushing
Nothing throws a neighborhood into relief like death, and nothing organizes a neighborhood like a good bar, preferably one that can sort the locals from the tourists or barhoppers.
Reading others' meditations on the death of Holiday Cocktail Lounge's owner, Stefan Lutak -- along with ruminations on the passing of Joe Ades, the peeler man, who'd sold his wares at the northwest corner of the Union Square farmer's market as long as I've been shopping there -- reminds me of the death of a good friend and patron saint of the old seaport, Don Taube, a couple summers ago. Don wasn't the owner of our local bar but he was one of the regulars, even though he had given up drinking years before when he wife died. (The picture above was taken the night I gave a book reading at the Seaport Museum; it meant the world to me that Don made it out that night.)
Losing a neighborhood figure like that leaves a hole, but a productive one in which the loved one lives on and continues to shape lives; I can't sit at the bar without thinking about Don and I know plenty of other people who can't either. Most of us wouldn't even need the brass plate we screwed to the rail with his name on it. I imagine the same will be the same for dozens of Holiday patrons -- God willing the place survives its owner's death.
The folks at the fabulous foundation City Lore, in their not-four-tourists guidebook Hidden New York, reprint a poem by the Brooklyn writer Robert Hershon:
So here's to all the Dons and Stefans and Peeler Men out there, living, dead, or living on in people's memories and daily interactions.
Reading others' meditations on the death of Holiday Cocktail Lounge's owner, Stefan Lutak -- along with ruminations on the passing of Joe Ades, the peeler man, who'd sold his wares at the northwest corner of the Union Square farmer's market as long as I've been shopping there -- reminds me of the death of a good friend and patron saint of the old seaport, Don Taube, a couple summers ago. Don wasn't the owner of our local bar but he was one of the regulars, even though he had given up drinking years before when he wife died. (The picture above was taken the night I gave a book reading at the Seaport Museum; it meant the world to me that Don made it out that night.) Losing a neighborhood figure like that leaves a hole, but a productive one in which the loved one lives on and continues to shape lives; I can't sit at the bar without thinking about Don and I know plenty of other people who can't either. Most of us wouldn't even need the brass plate we screwed to the rail with his name on it. I imagine the same will be the same for dozens of Holiday patrons -- God willing the place survives its owner's death.
The folks at the fabulous foundation City Lore, in their not-four-tourists guidebook Hidden New York, reprint a poem by the Brooklyn writer Robert Hershon:
The Driver SaidNot that many of us can still say we have a butcher, unfortunately, but lots of folks have a bartender, or a fellow who regularly occupies the stool next to you. These are the people who, no matter their demeanor, stitch lives together to make communities.
boerum hill?
it used to be
gowanus
this ain't no
neighborhood
if ya butcher
comes to ya funeral
that's a
neighborhood
So here's to all the Dons and Stefans and Peeler Men out there, living, dead, or living on in people's memories and daily interactions.
