Secret Society

Bohemian threnody

John Strausbaugh has a good piece in the NYT on the storied history of the East Village -- the video segment is highly recommended as well. But the fact that it's being published in the "Weekend Explorer" section, complete with a downloadable audio walking tour, seems more than a little symptomatic of the forces that are killing the neighborhood, even as they exoticize what it used to be. Like Clayton Patterson says in the piece, "Now it’s the American Montmartre. Tourists come to see where that culture was."

Or, as Ted Reichman wrote on his blog earlier this week:

Then I had a drink in a bar on the near-unrecognizable corner of my old block (3rd and B) where in the former haunt of masses of heroin dealers and consumers, I saw Sean Paul in a yellow Lamborghini convertible.

4 core element foundations imperative

Dan Smith Will Make You His Bitch Teach You Guitar - Davie Kaufmann takes a lesson with NYC's hardest-working flyer-poster.

(Yes it's old, but I only just stumbled on it now.)

UPDATE: Of course there is a Dan Smith Will Teach You blog.

UPDATE 2: The Boston Dan Smith is James Berry, although he has been known to kick it up a notch. I think someone needs to set these guys up in a guitar duel. Or possibly a flyering duel.

House of cards

How 'bout that infrastructure, eh?

Flooding from torrential overnight rains crippled the New York City subway system this morning. Delays of at least 30 minutes were reported on all subway lines, and customers were urged to forgo the subways entirely and take buses if possible. The thunderstorm caused havoc across the region, forcing thousands of people, like the pedestrians who crowded the Manhattan Bridge in both directions, to walk to work or work from home. The National Weather Service warned about scorching heat this afternoon, while in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, a small tornado appeared to have touched down this morning, damaging rooftops and toppling trees.

At 9:55 a.m., transit officials warned that the subway system would not be back until noon at the earliest — and possibly not until the evening rush. “We can pump a lot of water out of the system — we do, on a daily basis — but when we have this much rain in the system at one time, our ability to pump the water out into the sewer system is hampered because that system is overwhelmed,” Paul J. Fleuranges, a New York City Transit spokesman, told NY1 News.

[…]

El Jones wrote, “I am stunned how unreliable the New York Transit system is. For the price it must be the most poorly run system in the world; For half the system to be knocked out by a night of heavy rain is embarrassing. Even worse is the announcements/notifications that they give their PAYING customers. I entered the subway today, and there was no announcement, sign, employee, or anything else that would warn me that something was wrong, or which track to use. Once on the track, there was also no announcements or warnings.”

Read the rest.

Let's go parking, baby

Seriously, what the fuck am I even doing in this city? I'd really like to know.

For Parking Space, the Price Is Right at $225,000 (NYT)

“At first, I was getting overwhelmed and didn’t want to spend the money,” Ms. Habberstad said. “I’m kicking myself now, believe me.”

She and her three children, ages 7, 9 and 11, live on Long Island, but the children’s modeling schedules bring them into the city at least twice a week, and the apartment they bought in the building will be a pied-à-terre.

“If we’re coming in late from dinner or we have a lot of stuff in the car, do we really want to have to walk a few blocks to get home?” Ms. Habberstad said. “It all makes sense now that I don’t have it.”

So I wait for the F train (white city on the yellow line)

If you're in NYC, fercrissakes sign.

To: MTA, NYC Transit and Elected Officials We, the undersigned, call for the restoration of express service on the F line to Brooklyn and extension of the V line for local service to Brooklyn.

Increases in the commuting population in Brooklyn have taxed the transit infrastructure, and the plan for Congestion Pricing in Manhattan will further add to the stresses on subway commuters. Enhancing transit service in the outer boroughs is vital to the quality of life in our rapidly growing communities and to the feasibility of any congestion pricing plan.

Currently, along the F line in Brooklyn, a set of express tracks lie unused while the local service gets more and more crowded. In addition, the V line currently stops at 2nd Avenue in Manhattan, resulting in near-empty V trains through Manhattan, while F trains are packed. It is past time to restore express service on the F line, and to extend the V line out to Brooklyn making local stops along the F line. The infrastructure exists to support a local and express on this line, analogous to the A and C trains on the 8th Avenue line. This will have the combined benefits of shorter commute times for those commuting from further out in Brooklyn, and more breathing room for commuters closer to Manhattan (Carroll Street, Bergen Street, Smith and 9th).

The MTA must act now to embrace increased ridership with increased service. Putting unused infrastructure to work in Brooklyn is a great start. To the extent that the upcoming rehabilitation of the Culver Viaduct interferes with express service beyond the Gowanus Canal, the rehabilitation must be fast-tracked to allow restoration of express service as soon as possible.

Sincerely,

The Undersigned

You can't hide forever from these streets

This is huge -- Galapagos is leaving Williamsburg:

In a move that has greater symbolic significance than mere real estate hopscotch, Galapagos Art Space, the pioneering bar and performing arts space that helped put Williamsburg, Brooklyn, on the cultural map, is moving a few neighborhoods down the East River, to Dumbo.

Galapagos, which has played host to a broad array of New York's musicians, dancers, theater artists, performance artists, fine artists and burlesque dancers during its 12-year existence, is scheduled to move into the space, a 102-year-old, 10,000-square-foot former horse stable at 16 Main Street, in the spring or summer of 2008.

Read the rest. DUMBO (that's Down Under the Manhattan Bridge Overpass, for you non-New Yorkers) was a haven for artists in the 1970's, until rising rents forced them out. With the same pattern now repeating itself in Williamsburg, it's more than a bit ironic that the real estate giant most associated with DUMBO's gentrification is now poaching arts venues from Williamsburg.

That said, with spaces for creative music and arts in NYC rapidly going extinct, it's reassuring to learn that Galapagos will adapt, not die.

UPDATE: It's worth mentioning that the people behind Galapagos are on the front lines of arts advocacy in New York. From their "Galapagos is moving to DUMBO" FAQ:

Last summer two developers walked into the North Brooklyn apartment of our friend and told him he had nothing to worry about - they weren't going to tear down the building he was living in for at least another year. Our friend, a filmmaker, thinks he can't possibly afford to stay in New York, and he's not alone.

The canaries in New York City's real estate gold mine -- its emerging and mid career artists -- are no longer talking about the next show they hope to land, they're talking about an affordable city they can land in once their current lease runs out.

If artists and the best young cultural thinkers think they can't possibly afford to live here then we'd better find ways to make them think they can't possibly afford to live anywhere else.

The only message that can effectively cut through cost is opportunity.

New York's development and cultural policies must become linked. Someone needs to find ways to make partners out of the people building the buildings, and the cultural uses the City needs in them. If we don't incentivize the replacement of the emerging and mid career arts infrastructure that's evaporating in our white-hot real estate market, it won't be built.

Open city overtones

Excellent subway photography (including the mythic abandoned stations and tracks) over at New York City Exposed.

Via Gothamist.

Damn

urgk... how is it possible that I didn't notice that Lewis Taylor was playing his first-ever North American gigs at the Bowery Ballroom until it was two days too late?

Well, at least now that he's got US distribution, there's some chance he'll be back in New York soon.

So Long, And Thanks For All The Fish

It was the market's final night on the East River Thursday, and moist-eyed tough guys were running around with disposable cameras, hugging each other, popping bottles of homemade wine. Suddenly Mr. Bencivenga, 62, found himself reminiscing about the vanished old timers, the boisterous camaraderie, the way the sun arches over the Brooklyn Bridge in the morning. He recalled the fire in 1995 that destroyed the building he works in, the place he came to straight out of high school, and how he started selling fish on the pavement that morning as firefighters sprayed water over his head.

"We survived 9/11," he said with a lump in his throat. "You know, this is the last place blue collar fellas work outdoors. It's pretty amazing."

Then he added a final thought. "Nah, it doesn't make me nostalgic at all."

[link]

Cell phone cam photoblogging

I love how the MTA is really just one big canvas for everyone's conceptual art projects. While the days of full subway car graffiti may be largely gone, there's always someone willing go to the trouble of making custom stickers like the one above, or, more ambitiously, this project.