40 SNOWY NYC WINTER STORM SNAPS FROM MY INSTAGRAM FEED

I drove in from my upstate place in the Catskill Mountains to the West Village of Manhattan yesterday just in time for the snow to start falling. I checked out the view from my front door a few times and then went to bed and awoke this AM to a REAL winter blizzard. They weren’t kidding! The view out my door and on Instagram tells me we’ve gotten about 6-7 inches, so far and it’s supposed to snow for another day! I have tickets to the live broadcast of SNL with Ronda Rousey and Selena Gomez tonight, so it should be fun getting uptown. Here are some of my Instagram pals pics. Jeffrey Slonim gave us a peek at Madonna‘s mega-mansion on the UES from his front stoop, NPH gives us his view in Harlem & SJP – who lives a few blocks away– shows snow piling up in her backyard. Closed galleries and museums gave us views of their gardens and snow art as a consolation and my friends, the sister design duo of Porter & Hollister Hovey, had to cancel their design show house they’ve worked so hard on. (Speaking of hardon, Wowlebrity Linda Simpson is apparently warm indoors with that shirtless, sexy TV jogger!) Fashion maven Derek Blasberg shows us evidence that a blizzard is not excuse NOT to wear stylin’ footwear. Lots of dogs in the white from all over like photographer Pamela Hanson & artist Jo Shane and where I came from in the Catskills, the cute Itty Bitty Griff and buddy sit in cute coats waiting for the flakes to fall. Let in snow! Stay warm, kids!

THE ZIEGFELD THEATER IS CLOSING, BUT NYC IS GETTING A NEW MOVIE HOUSE

The iconic movie palace the Ziegfeldmovie theater is closing. And I must say, I bummed. The Ziegfeld, opened in 1969, is Manhattan’s last remaining large single-screen showplace used exclusively for movies with 1,300 seats (there is only one other remaining single-screen movie venue in the borough, the 571-seat gem, The Paris). Revered by cinema buffs, The Ziegfeld has been losing over $1 million annually and it is a business, after all. But there’s good news too, it will be reborn as an event space.

The new Ziegfeld Ballroom will be a mecca for all sorts of events, and will open in the fall 2017 after a two-year renovation. (Please don’t mess it up TOO much.) The ballroom is to be run by most of the partners who operate Gotham Hall, the event venue inside a landmarked former bank at Broadway and West 36th Street.

The ballroom’s art deco design will also pay homage to the Ziefeld’s predecessor on Seventh Avenue, which was opened by showman Florenz Ziegfeld, which was torn down for the office building adjoining the newer theater. The Ziegfeld’s landlord, the Fisher Brothers real-estate company, on Wednesday notified the cinema’s leaseholder, Cablevision, that they had a new tenant. 

World renowned for the quality of its sound and projection — and for an ornate design that evoked the long-gone ’20s movie palaces that once lined Broadway and Seventh Avenue — the Ziegfeld was for decades one of the country’s best-known movie venues, largely because it hosted countless glitzy movie premieres. But changes in moviegoing habits and studios cutting back on lavish premieres losses mounted and the Ziegfeld’s fate was pretty much sealed sealed. The movie theater is expected to close within a few weeks and it is currently showing Star Wars: The Force Awakens. I’ve already seen it but I’ll go again, to say goodbye to the old Ziegfeld.

But Manhattan is constantly renewing and reinventing itself, so there’s a new theater opening, not another Hollywood blockbuster joint but perhaps something more culturally important. Metrograph is the city’s new two-screen indie movie house, is officially opening at 7 Ludlow Street on Friday, February 19. It is the first new indie cinema opening in a decade and it will be hosting several retrospectives and special programs throughout March and April. Metrograph founder and New York-based director Alexander Olch says, 

“Growing up in Manhattan, I fell in love with movies in theaters which are now sadly gone, like The Beekman and The Plaza. To bring glamour, excitement, and prestige back to the exhibition experience has been my longstanding goal.”

You can add the Ziegfeld to that list now. Metrograph will unveil the full details for upcoming programs on their website here. (via NY Post)

ANOTHER RESTAURANT CLOSES & NYC WEEPS...?

Don’t get me wrong, I really love New York City. Lots of great place have closed due to what most people see as greed. I don’t want to come off like the “most hated man in America”, Martin Shkreli, but I think it’s called capitalism and fair market value for one of the most expensive islands on the planet. Maybe I’m getting ahead of myself. Here’s my point…

I was reading the great NYC blog Jeremiah’s Vanishing New York and came across the closing of a restaurant in my neighborhood that I’ve walked by a jillion times but never eaten in, Garage. Here’s the post;

Reader Elizabeth writes in that the last day is January 3. She says, 

“their rent was going to be hiked to $50k a month. So they are closing. I am heartsick. My friend George and I had Thanksgiving dinner there many times over the years, and loved hanging at the big beautiful wood bar and listening to jazz. No plans to try to reopen in NYC.”

Garage restaurant has been on Seventh Avenue in the Village for about 20 years now. According to Vanishing, it was, duh, originally a garage. 75 years ago, it was the Nut Club, a nightclub that, among other things, hosted cockroach races. In the 1950s, it was jazz club The Pad and then Lower Basin Street, where jazz great Dave Brubeck once played.

Later, the building housed the Sheridan Square Playhouse, home of the Circle Repertoryfrom 1969 – 1994, when they (were forced?) to move to a larger space shortly before folding. Garage, the restaurant, hosted jazz every night and had a jazz brunch on weekends. 

OK. So as you see, the space has been MANY things, since it was a garage. Whoever got their car fixed or parked there, thought it was a disaster when it became a club, I’ll bet. From the comments section of Vanishing;

“Garage has been in that location at least since 1992 or 93. I used to live around the corner on 4th between Jones and Cornelia. Garage was always my wife’s and my first choice for brunch in the neighborhood when we craved something with jazz. It was also pretty good for people watching out the window on 7th from the bar.” –John

To which Scout replied:

“Oh, I am glad to see this awful place go, after they threw out one of New York City’s BEST Off-Broadway theatre companies, Circle Rep.

If you weren’t in NY during the 80s, you can’t know how important Circle Rep was; and they didn’t leave that space willingly, they were ejected in favor of a generic restaurant.

This space had been a theatre since 1958, and should always have been a theatre (and should be one again, but won’t)”

Get my point? New York City is CONSTANTLY changing. F.A.O. Schwartz is gone. So is Roseland… and the original Penn Station. THOSE were institutions. Garage restaurant was loved by many, as was Circle Rep. But it’s a Circle Game, kids. Something closes and something else opens. That’s the way it works. 

Now there are legitimate slum lords and terrible situations where businesses lose their space and that sucks. And things that close down that we miss, I get that. But also realize that not every situation is horrible and unfair. On a purely pragmatic note, if you owned the Garage space and their rent came up for renewal, you’d let them stay and take a lot less $$ every month, year after year? You would? OMG! You’re a SAINT!)

New York City is self-renewing, it’s constantly changing. Something else will move into the Garage space. Maybe it’ll be your new favorite place, others might hate it. The city, and the world, is full of great things to do and see. So, let’s enjoy what we got while we’ve got it. Don’t get stuck in the past or you’ll miss the present.

(via Vanishing New York)

ATTACH THIS TO YOUR IPHONE TO GET A PRO SHOT OF MANHATTANHENGE TONIGHT

Yes, you must have heard of it. Manhattanhenge. It’s also referred to as the Manhattan Solstice, occurs when the setting sun aligns with the east–west streets of the street grid in the city. The best views of the sun perfectly setting between some of the city’s most iconic buildings are offered at 14th, 23rd, 34th, 42nd, 57th, and those streets nearby at around 8:15 PM. It usually strikes twice a year, in late May and again in mid July. Last night had everyone out with their camera phones. But to get a REALLY pro shot, you might try the DxO One, a compact gizmo with an SD slot, touch screen and internal battery with its own lens that gives you raw 20.9 megapixel images. DxO uses the image processing technology that presently is used in over 300 million phone cameras. This new camera weighs less than an iPhone and is 2.65 inches high. You can easily carry it in your pocket. The iPhone screen acts like the viewfinder. To get technical, you also have ISO selection from 100 to 51,000. All the controls you’s expect on a DSLR are present like manual, aperture and shutter priority as well as scene selection mode options. Unfortunately, this new camera isn’t available sometime in August. But you’ll be ready for next year’s Manhattanhenge.

THE NEW YORK WHEEL WILL BE 60 STORIES TALL!

Whatever happened to The New York Wheel, which just started construction on Staten Island five years ago? It was supposed to have a concert venue, beer garden, playground and be the tallest Ferris in the U.S.. At 630 feet and 60 stories tall – 80 feet taller than the one in Las Vegas and almost 200 feet taller than the London Eye .

The 40-minute ride was to have drop-dead views of the NYC skyline, the Statue of Liberty and each glass pod will hold 40 visitors, operating until midnight. The downside? It’s in Staten Island. That and it’s not being being built.

According to New Repulic,

…the Staten Island Advance wrote that $400 million of the reported $580 million in funding had already been spent—a whopping $250 million had gone into the parking garage alone; $80 million to recently terminated contractor Mammoet; $30 million to keep the site running.

At this point, The Wheel would need some three million visitors a year, according to an estimate by Hunden Strategic Partners, just to break even. “Even if The Wheel were built, what was the exit strategy to pay off the investors?” asked Friedland, the NYU professor. “Can the cost of a ride really sufficiently cover the debt service?”

The Staten Island Advance also reported that some $300 million more would be needed to complete the project. In September, the city rejected a last-ditch request by the developers that tax-free bonds be issued to make up the difference in funding. Since the project was privately funded, it was hard to know how much money The Wheel had or needed. There were rumors that the Highbridge loan had fallen through. “So far, what we’ve seen in this case, unfortunately, is a project that is not going to be economically viable,” said Mayor Bill de Blasio. By fall 2018, the cost of completion had reportedly ballooned to over $1 billion.

With the project on indefinite delay and looking increasingly unlikely. In January 2018, it was terminated. Nine months later, the project was pronounced dead.

In the end, Staten Island came away with a parking garage.
“The developers of The New York Wheel are proud to have delivered a state-of-the art, modern 325,000 square-foot garage structure,” spokeswoman Cristyne Nicholas said.

Others aren’t so pleased. “It’s unfortunate that we’re stuck with the ugliest part: a parking garage that blocks the view from Richmond Terrace,” David Goldfarb, a former president of the St. George Civic Association, told The New York Times.

CLUELESS SELFIE SHOT BLASTED ON THE COVER OF THE POST

I saw this shot posted from blog called EV Grieve, which covers local news about the East Village of Manhattan. I reposted it on Facebook on Friday, with the heading “What IS wrong with people?” It got tons of shares and comments from friends who were wondering the same thing and all were shocked that these young ladies were so tasteless as to pose in front of this tragedy. (And speculating if they were New Yorkers or tourists. I voted tourists.) The story made the national news, but in case you missed it, a gas line exploded and caught fire at a sushi restaurant and 2 missing are presumed dead, 19 were injured, 4 critically and scores of people are homeless as three building burned to the ground and were reduced to rubble. As I posted here the Soprano‘s Drea de Mateo lost her apartment of 22 years, as did her neighbors. This is sad and shocking to all New Yorkers and most thinking people. These girls aren’t the only one taking selfies, many have been busted. So, let this be a lesson, DON’T take selfies in situations like these kids, or you might find yourself on the cover of The New York Post and the subject of national ridicule.

19 AMAZING STREET PHOTOS OF NEW YORK CITY IN THE 70S

I was a teenager in Texas during all of it, so I missed out on the New York City of the 1970s. It was a very different place than where I live today. The Bowery, now lined with million dollar apartments, lived up to it’s infamous name by hosting much of the city’s illicit activities. Dealers and hookers worked pretty openly in the now-santitized Times Square. Mid-decade the city went through a HUGE final crisis, much like Detroit has been experiencing lately. In ’77, a city-wide blackout plunged Gotham into chaos after the power went out for a full 24 hours. By the end of the decade, the city saw 1,814 homicides, three times what it is today — while the population declined to just over 7 million, down a million from the previous decade. Today, on the face of it, people would LONG to return to a time when the city was cheaper, but these grim stats are a grim reminder that is was a tough town. Granted, there were exciting things happening too: Andy Warhol’s Factory, Saturday Night Live in their heyday, Studio 54 and CBGB‘s thrived in a climate of sexual freedom and wild creativity. But in these pictures, none of that good, or bad, is apparent. Just street life –like the great 70s anthem says:

Street life / You can run away from time / Street life / For a nickel, for a dime Street life / But you better not get old / Street life / Or you’re gonna feel the cold

Facing Southwest to Fourteenth Street from Third Avenue. Photo by Bill Ricco

42nd Street at Seventh Avenue, facing Northwest, 1970

14th Street between 9th and 10th Avenues, facing East, 1976. Photo by Eugene Gannon

Mulberry Street at Hester, facing North, 1975. Photo by Nick DeWolf

Eighth Avenue at 41st Street, facing Northeast, 1978. Photo by Tony Smull

Madison Avenue at 64th Street, facing South, 1979. Photo by Alan Benjamin

West End Avenue at 79th Street, facing North, 1979

Northeast corner of Delancey and Bowery, c.1978. Photo by Manel Armengol

68th and Broadway, facing Northeast, 1980

Lafayette Street at Bleecker, facing North, 1976. Screen grab from the film “Marathon Man”

Ninth Avenue at 56th Street, facing South, 1979

Sixth Avenue at 27th Street, 1978. Photo by Manel Armengol

Hell’s Kitchen, 1973. Photo by Paul Mones

Sixth Avenue facing South from 59th Street

Southwest corner of 74th and Broadway, the storefront was located inside the Ansonia. Early 1970s

July 4th, 1976 – Bicentennial celebration in New York Harbor. Photo by Steven Lindner

Northeast Corner of 14th Street at 7th Avenue, 1972. Photo by Lionel Martinez

Times Square night in 1970. Photo by James Wolcott

(via Vintage Everyday)

#TBT: THE OLDEST EXISTING FOOTAGE OF NEW YORK CITY...

Talk about “Throwback Thursday” – this footage, the oldest in existence, really is pretty incredible. Some map graphics have been added in case you aren’t that familiar with the city. Viewers get to pinpoint exactly where these landmarks are in contemporary New York City. I think a new way to edit this, much of it shot by Thomas Edison‘s studio, might be to show a split screen with 2015 NYC. A warning; unless you like an unnecessary and annoying soundtrack, MUTE. Otherwise, watch!

HOW MUCH IS NYC'S MOST EXPENSIVE APT. RENTAL? WOULD YOU BELIEVE $500,000 A MONTH?!

Last month I posted the deal of the century; an duplex on Minetta Lane in the West Village for $10 a month. Now here’s THE most expensive rental in New York City (by quite a lot.) The 39th floor of the Pierre Hotel, rents for $500,000 a month. Uh-huh, $6 million dollars a year. (As a comparison, one of the most expensive apartments in the city offered by Corcoran, on the market for $60 million, would cost you $290,000 a month for for mortgage, maintenance and taxes. Of course, you’d need to plop down $12 million…) The Pierre’s’s Presidential Suite (which is $20,000 a night) combines with other suites to form this full-floor, 4,786-square-foot, 6 bedroom, 6 bath, (no kitchen) suite. The major selling point of being at the Pierre are the over-the-top hotel amenities, which include twice daily maid service, an on-call physician, two restaurants (which, btw, you’ll need without a kitchen) butler service and a chauffeur-driven Jaguar. To say nothing of that lobby and view of the park. If this seems a bit steep, they also have a one bedroom there with a park view for $120,000 a month.