Shame Island
- April 19 -
“I don’t give a damn about the awning—the old one was nothing special. But that “B & H Dairy Lunch” sign was a gem. They better be cleaning it up, not replacing it with some gaudy piece of modern crap, or else I’m coming after them.
The awning Nazis, those folks think a cloth awning is preferable to any old sign, are only second to Bloomie’s crapitecture development buddies, in my opinion, in destroyed the character of this city.”—Lost City is concerned about the missing B&H signage.
“One table had cupcakes. Not bright, shiny Magnolia SATC cupcakes, but dark-looking vegan Cupcakes Against Fascism. You could also get a button with a gun-toting cupcake on it that said, ‘Fuck Nazis.’”—Jeremiah’s Vanishing New York visits the Anarchist Book Fair
link- April 16 -
“The sepia photo above was taken in 1928 on Smith Street at Bergen Street. I was standing at the same intersection to take a photo from appropriately same spot, I almost got run over.The traffic was horrendous. The trolleys on the old photo look so much more efficient and environmentally correct, don’t they?”—Pardon Me For Asking
link- April 12 -
The website for new Bowery/Kenmare hotel The Nolitan states, “When we open our doors in early 2010, you’ll experience one of New York’s most authentic and endearing neighborhoods in an entirely new way.” Bowery Boogie responds, “Perhaps it should read, ‘you’ll experience a neighborhood decimated by the onslaught of big money, overpriced hotels, and bars, all of which continue to erase the fabric of this unique community.’”
link- April 1 -
“While we’re enjoying these murals, it’s important to keep in mind their hidden subtext—how they are, in fact, a cog in the wheel of the Big Machine that is turning the Bowery into a luxury lifestyle destination.”—Vanishing New York
link- March 28 -
“No sooner had the artists taken up residence than journalists began pining for the “old” Village and the Bohemia of yesteryear, which, in its time, had inspired the same laments. Bohemia—the “real” thing—is always yesterday, when the artists lived and loved spontaneously, unlike their phony successors.”—William Grimes, writing about Village restaurants of the early 1900s in his book Appetite City.
link- March 27 -
RT @dmcdermon: Confirmed: the East Village is a community of children. #annoying #assholes
link- March 26 -
“My bike screeched to a halt when I caught sight of this fantastic piece of crapitecture on Eighth Avenue in the South Slope. It’s crap, no doubt about it. But rarely have I seen crapitecture that apes the curved, groovy lines of 1960s office buildings. Fifty years ago, this would have soon been full of dentists and CPAs. Today, it will be filled by condo-ites.”—Lost City gets nostalgic for a pre-gentrification era when the dentists roamed freely over Brooklyn
“Said one East Village observer to EV Grieve: ‘It’s like the White Man hiring an Indian guide to take them into the forests.’”—EV Grieve on the matter of NYU and the Times looking for a consultant for their East Village news site, The Local
link“So what’s coming to East First? A store where the childless affluent can purchase cyborg toddlers to love? Or where they can drop off their flesh-and-blood toddlers to be loved by robots? We can only wait and wonder…”—Vanishing New York
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