The Refinery

Last week, Curbed shared photos from the marketing materials for the new luxury development of the former Domino Sugar refinery. The place is now being called "The Refinery." Because, yes, that's what the building was, but also--obviously--because that's what the developers (and City Hall) want the luxury development to do.

It will help to refine the neighborhood.



What do refineries do? They cleanse. They purify. Sugar refineries, in particular, take darker materials and turn them white. That is also being done--has been done--to Williamsburg and to much of Brooklyn and the city.

New York is becoming exponentially whiter every day, thanks to hyper-gentrification. The process acts as one big refinery, a factory for smoothing and bleaching.



Mayor de Blasio appears to be all for this. Or else he's been brainwashed by the neoliberal free-marketeer myth that luxury development is inevitable. (It is not.) He recently told Crain's NYC Summit conference that the "only way" to create an inclusive city "is through development."

He could not be more wrong. Development excludes. Development whitens. Development segregates.

The designers who created The Refinery's renderings know this. Look at the people in the images. What do you see?

San Loco Struggles

Jill Hing's brothers opened the San Loco taco joint in the East Village in 1986. A year later, Jill followed her brothers, moving to New York City from rural Nebraska. She soon joined the business. San Loco has been a Lower East Side staple ever since. On a personal note, I've been living off their tacos for half my life.

Recently, Jill got in touch to talk about the struggles of running a small business in the city today. "We have been feeling unbelievable pressure caused by the increased cost of doing business for quite a few years now," she wrote. "At this point, we are not sure how much longer we can hang on."

I asked Jill a few questions about San Loco's struggles in a rigged system where small businesses get the shaft--while big national chains get preferential rents from landlords, higher property values from banks, and corporate welfare from City Hall.



Q: What's been the biggest struggle to San Loco's survival these days?

A: There are many factors that contribute to our struggle to survive--and the noose definitely keeps tightening. Our customer base has been mostly squeezed out of this neighborhood as a consequence of hyper-gentrification. Rent is a constant source of stress. In our case, as with many long-standing businesses, we are at the mercy of the landlord and live in fear of our next rent renewal.

They can raise your rent exponentially to just force you out, or they can charge you above market because they know moving is not a viable option. For example, one of our location's lease is up in the spring, we have been tenants there for 20 years, but still they are asking about 15-20% above the comps around us because they know moving is expensive, disruptive, and can cost us our liquor license (although San Loco obtained the liquor license it stays with the address). And regardless of our good standing with the community board, we could be denied a new license, or most likely, be given one with limitations. There are moratoriums on most blocks now because of the over saturation of restaurants/bars in the neighborhood.

It makes me furious that landlords are able to manipulate the market and falsely inflate property values this way. Once we even had a landlord ask for a percentage of our revenue as part of our lease.

The other contributing factor is that the increased cost of doing business has gone through the roof. Some costs: Seamless has cornered the market with on-line ordering and they keep raising their percentage, they take 17-20% now, which is higher than our profit margin. Our blue collar lunch crowd dwindled when the cost of parking more than tripled. Our purveyor costs went up when parking tickets more than doubled. Yelp touts themselves as unbiased, but they aggressively try to force you to “advertise” with them, which includes manipulating reviews (good ones come to the top, bad ones go to the bottom).

Q: How has that changed in recent years?

A: While many of our old-school customers have moved out, the ones that remain are loyal to the death. We love them and are so grateful for their loyalty, but we also want to appeal to the new influx of people in the neighborhood. Because we are inexpensive, we have always been reliant on volume.

I’ve noticed that going out to dinner doesn’t really happen organically anymore, nobody just walks into a place to check it out and try it for themselves, they have to google it first to be told what to expect and if they’re going to like it. The nightlife has definitely changed as well. Our neighborhood has more professionals and students now. People aren’t out roaming the streets and leaving shows at 3 a.m. anymore.

Q: Did it used to be easier to run a small business in the city--and why?

A: Much easier. The regulations and restrictions end up costing so much money that it's almost cost prohibitive to open a business for people like us. Little hole in the wall places could open and survive in years past because the cost of doing business wasn’t so crushing, and getting started wasn’t so daunting. You could just work hard and go for it.

Q: How do you think the increase in chain stores has affected your business?

A: People seem to want to know what to expect, they aren’t looking for a surprise or an adventure, and they don’t want to be part of your weird world, they are looking for sameness. New York has lost so much of its character, it seems that we have sold our soul to the highest bidder (I think largely due to Bloomberg), and it makes me sad to say, but I think NYC has lost the plot.



Go eat some San Loco tacos--and save our small businesses by supporting the mission of #SaveNYC. Take one small action today. We made it easy for you. Just click here.

Child's Seahorses

The McDonald's on 6th Avenue and 28th Street is getting a gut renovation.



This would not be newsworthy, except for the fact that this McDonald's was once a Child's restaurant, a chain of long ago, beloved by urban historians, and this renovation has so far included the destruction of the antique terra-cotta decoration around the top of the 1930 building.



The motif includes intertwined seahorses, Child's signature style, with some creatures that look like bears.

A large portion has been scraped off so far.

In Coney Island, the Child's was landmarked. This one won't be worthy of preservation once all the seahorses are destroyed. Is this an intentional scalp job?

Tiny Food

The new Astor Place is at it again. Now that our public space has been semi-privatized by the Bloomberg administration and the Village Alliance BID, now that it's a prime example of zombie urbanism, it continues to push the interactive corporate advertainment installations.

First, there was the Design Pavilion. Now it's a "tiny food" pop-up cafe to "celebrate the new Zagat app!"



Yes, tiny food.

Look at it. So tiny. So cute. As Jim Windolf once said in Vanity Fair, "Big business is not blind to the power of cute... cuteness tricks you into forgetting that it represents something that’s not cute in the slightest."

Zagat is owned by Google, who basically owns everything about you. And there's that whole thing about public spaces being privatized. But don't think about that! Just get excited about tiny food!



Tiny tacos. Tiny burgers. Tiny pizza. Tiny cookies. All "versions" of food items from trendy eateries around town. Hurry up and stand in line!



But watch out you don't get rowdy near the corporate advertainment pavilion kiosk. Astor Place now has a private security guard.



Previously:
Battle for Astor Place
Astor Place Design Pavilion
Astor Place Farce
Controlling Astor Place

The Carnegie Deli & America

I went to the Carnegie Deli recently to experience it before it shutters forever this New Year's Eve after 79 years in business. It's closing not because of the rent, but because the owner is tired of it all. Someone wants to buy the place and keep it going, but the owner is not interested. It's closing. Period. So I went.



If you've tried to get into the Carnegie you know it's almost impossible, thanks to the hordes of tourists mobbing at the door day and night. Tourists have always dined at the Carnegie--I did when I was a teenage tourist--but today the city suffers under mass tourism and there are many places--parks, museums--that are no longer enjoyable because of them.

So I got there at 8:00 in the morning, the moment it opened. Only a few diners were inside. It was quiet, the speakers playing light music from the 70s and 80s. Kenny Rogers, Barry Manilow, Neil Diamond. Their images hang on the walls, in the famous sea of autographed head shots.

What will happen to all those head shots when Carnegie goes? What will happen to Larry Hagman, David Hasselhoff, Mr. T?



I couldn't bring myself to eat an overloaded pastrami sandwich at 8:00 in the morning, so I ordered eggs. A mistake. Nothing interesting happened. No Borscht Belt comedians were hanging out, cracking wise. Just the tourists, most of them looking tired and somewhat depressed.

As I was leaving, the place had already begun to crowd. A group of giddy young women took up a whole long table, every single one carrying those flowery quilted duffel bags you only see tourists carrying. They were loud. Bachelorettes. I left.



I decided to go to the Guggenheim just to use the golden toilet known as "America." I walked across Central Park, hoping that by the time I arrived at my destination my breakfast would have inspired a solid production. A shit in a golden toilet would be something. But this was not to be.



Again, I arrived early. I got to use the toilet right away, before the crowds showed up. The attendant informed us that people wait as long as two hours for the opportunity to evacuate into solid gold. Maybe they want to feel like Donald Trump. Maybe they want to make a statement, some sort of private protest. Or maybe they're just nihilists.

Does anyone prep for this experience by swallowing a handful of Just Another Rich Kid's gold pills so they can shit gold in the gold toilet?

I stepped inside and closed the door. Alone with the toilet, I snapped a few photos, then did what anyone does. A belly full of Carnegie Deli coffee went into "America." I can't say that I felt any better about the whole thing--the tourists, the loss of New York's character, hyper-gentrification, the presidential election, America, the way everything is going (down the shitter?). But I did feel like I'd accomplished some elemental mission, and it was still early in the day, after all. So there was that.

Bleecker St. Records

VANISHED

Last week, I shared the news that Bleecker Street Records would be closing. This past weekend, they shuttered.


from Bleecker St. Records Facebook page

As noted earlier, the shop left Bleecker Street in 2013 after over 20 years in business when the landlord hiked the rent to $27,000. They relocated to West 4th. Sadly, many relocations don't work out, and stable, long-term small businesses often fold after being forced to move.

The shop's old spot on Bleecker was turned into a Starbucks.

In more depressing news, the record store's famous cat, Creeper, died two weeks ago. Their Facebook page reported:

"She's up in rock & roll kitty heaven with her brother, Scuzzball, and probably sitting on David Bowie's lap on a sparkling cloud floating somewhere above Manhattan."


from Bleecker St. Records Facebook page

Gay Gotham

The Museum of the City of New York is currently showing "Gay Gotham: Art and Underground Culture in New York," a multi-media exhibit that "brings to life the queer creative networks that sprang up in the city across the 20th century."



It's a show worth seeing. I was most intrigued by a collection of small photographs taken on the streets of New York by an anonymous photographer in the 1960s. They show men walking, cruising, and meeting other men, mostly around 42nd Street.

The wall text references a 1960 New York Times article decrying the "decay of 42nd Street," thanks in part to homosexuals, at a time when the city wanted to attract tourists for the upcoming World's Fair.



In the article, reporter Milton Bracker hits the street to see the decay for himself.

"In two weeks of studying the area, virtually at all hours," he wrote, "this reporter encountered several of the most extreme types. One was a Negro who wore fluffed-up hair and heavy black make-up on his brows and lashes."



"Another obvious deviate," Bracker wrote, "was a white youth with thick blond hair and handsome features who wore make-up on his eyebrows. This youth wore a wind-breaker (sometimes called a 'tanker jacket') and tapered black trousers of the the style known as 'continentals.' His wavy hair was combed straight back and he spoke effeminately and shifted his hips and legs as he spoke."

When the blond boy walked with his friends into a cafeteria, he "attracted a great deal of attention and many contemptuous remarks." But he was not arrested. It was getting harder to tell the homosexuals from the beatniks, so police were making fewer arrests for "committing a crime against nature."

Bracker concluded, "He may have been a subject for a psychiatrist; he was not one for the police."



The article goes on to describe loiterers, drifters, perverts, prostitutes, purveyors of knives and itching powder, sailors, Murphy Game operators, and players of Fascination.

Vivid scenes from a lost 42nd Street, finally defeated in the name of tourism.

New York Bakery

VANISHING

New York Bakery is not a bakery. It's a hidden little gem on West 29th Street where the owner, Harrison, and his wife serve a quietly celebrated mix of Mexican and Korean food. It's been there for 12 years, up a narrow set of rusty stairs in the Wholesale District.

It won't be there much longer, as tipster Jared wrote in.



I went by for lunch. Harrison told me that developers are working on permits to tear down the building and put up something bigger.

He figures he's got another month or two before he has to go.



When he first opened shop, the Korean immigrant sold Korean food. But no one was buying. He noticed that many of the workers in the neighborhood were Hispanic. A Mexican woman started cooking for him and business got better. Gothamist recently called the tacos "glorious."

Now, with its ethnic mash-up, New York Bakery attracts devoted fans from all over the city.

Harrison told me, "My customers will be crying" when they hear about the closing.



He's not sure where he'll go next or if he'll even be able to relocate.

The rents in the neighborhood have climbed too high as developers rush to demolish everything in sight, replacing the useful little buildings with shiny new towers for a new population.

Bleecker Street Records

VANISHING

Back in 2013, I shared the news that Bleecker Street Records, after over 20 years in business, would be leaving Bleecker Street--and relocating to West 4th--when the landlord hiked the rent to $27,000.

Now we hear they are vanishing completely.



Jason at Generation Records wrote in:

"As of Halloween 2016, we will be making some significant changes at Generation Records. After much deliberation, we have decided to close our sister store, Bleecker Street Records. A number of factors have contributed to this decision, most notably the proximity of our two stores and the realistic necessity of having them both in a neighborhood that has seen a drastic rent hike in recent years. We realize that the loss of yet another record store in Manhattan seems discouraging, but our hope is to secure the future of Generation Records as a Village staple."

He reports they'll be consolidating all the stock from Bleecker Street Records to Generation on Thompson Street, and hope to be around for a long time.

With Rebel Rebel recently gone, and Bleecker Bob's before that, it's one of--how many record stores left in the Village?

As I've said before, moves are hard to make. When a landlord hikes the rent or denies a lease renewal, it looks like good news if the small business can find a new spot. But many close the new location within a few years.

Meanwhile, the old Bleecker Street Records spot remains a Starbucks.

Controlling Astor Place

Astor Place has long been a site of public protest and free expression. Today, after an upscale redesign, it is being controlled. This is what happens in a neoliberalized city. Public space becomes quasi-privatized.

And as urban scholar Sharon Zukin notes in Naked City, "Privatized public space...tends to reinforce social inequality."



New signs asserting the rules have gone up over Astor Place. Prohibited activities include the "unreasonable obstruction" of sitting areas and pedestrians, along with camping, storing personal belongings, and lying down.

This language clearly refers to the presence of homeless people and presumably will be used to harass them out of the new plaza. They can also be used to stop political protests and spontaneous, unregulated art performances.

Skateboarding is also not allowed, though it's been an unofficial Astor Place tradition for decades. In addition to this sign, there are several other day-glo signs placed on the ground around the plaza. They look like they're yelling. If you did try to skateboard (or bike) here, you'd have to maneuver around the signs, like in an obstacle course, there are so many of them.



You also can't smoke at the New Astor Place. It used to be an open public square, a city street, but now it's officially a Pedestrian Plaza, and Bloomberg outlawed smoking in Pedestrian Plazas.

A Pedestrian Plaza is much more controllable than an ordinary public square. The city's Department of Transportation began the Public Plaza Program in 2008 under Commissioner Janette Sadik-Khan of the Bloomberg Administration. They hyped Pedestrian Plazas as a way to improve the "quality of life" for New Yorkers by removing cars from the streets and providing open space for sitting.

But one thing Pedestrian Plazas do really well, aside from controlling the populace, is to raise property values in the surrounding area. The Times Square Pedestrian Plaza, for example, helped to hike retail rents by 71 percent in just six months. Sadik-Khan called it “the largest increase in the city’s history.”


photo: Taji Ameen and Justin Fly, via Vice

The new Astor Place Pedestrian Plaza is run by the Business Improvement District known as Village Alliance, a private group managed mostly by real-estate developers. BIDs are invested in raising property values. As Max Rivlin-Nadler wrote in The New Republic this year, "Business Improvement Districts are a favored neoliberal practice that transforms mixed-income neighborhoods into the same chain stores one can find at any outlet mall across the country."

A BID can also "hire its own security to patrol an area, effectively control who is offered retail space, kick out street vendors, and influence legislation and expansion efforts."



People who live in nearby condos also want to raise property values. Recall the rumor we heard this summer that "some type of committee at the Sculpture for Living building," the green glass condo tower on the square, is helping to dictate what happens at Astor Place.

(While I've not been able to confirm that rumor, I don't doubt it. We saw something similar happen with Washington Square Park, when a private group of "wealthy women" incorporated themselves into a conservancy to push “unsightly” hot dog vendors from the park.)


Where's the Cube?

"BIDs," Sharon Zukin wrote, "are an oligarchy; they embody the norm that the rich should rule."

They "direct a new kind of governance of public spaces by creating 'discretely manicured spaces' as playgrounds for adult consumers who have internalized norms of proper behavior and keep watch over others to make sure they conform to the rules. In an implicit bargain for the power to exercise control, BIDs provide quality services that show users they are being catered to: cleanliness, safety, well-tended flower beds, poetry readings."

When our public spaces are quasi-privatized, given over to zombie urbanism, they no longer belong to us. They may look pleasant on the surface, with benches, umbrellas, and public art installations, but they conceal a darker intention.

They are meant to control the people and the spaces of the city. They increase inequality and raise the rents. They squash public dissent. They package corporate advertising as interactive installation. As they hyper-gentrify our neighborhoods, they displace those of us who might protest.

Be aware. You are being civilized.


Previously:
Battle for Astor Place
Astor Place Farce

We Are Stardust

If you walk past Ellen's Stardust Diner at Broadway and 51st, you'll find their singing waiters making music -- on the street.



They're singing in protest of several firings that came after they unionized this summer in response to a change in management they say led to sexual harassment, bullying, and other abuses.

Ellen's Stardust Diner has been in business since 1995.



The workers' union is called Stardust Family United, a branch of the international labor union Industrial Workers of the World. You can visit their site to support them, and see more on their Facebook page. Playbill has many more details on the story.

Park Slope Starbucks

Park Slope has a new Starbucks. A gigantic Starbucks. It recently opened on the corner of 7th Avenue and 9th Street in a part of the neighborhood with very few, if any, national chain stores.



This large corner spot was previously home to Brooklyn Flipster's, a burger place. Their lease was not renewed.

Too bad the city won't stand up to corporations. Too bad they won't zone to stop the spread of chain stores. Too bad they won't pass the Small Business Jobs Survival Act or give us back commercial rent regulation, like we had decades ago.

Too bad Mayor de Blasio, in his own home neighborhood, won't do anything to stop the homogenization of the city and the total destruction of the small business streetscape.

Too bad no one in power will stand up and #SaveNYC.

Three Lives Books' Building Sold

Back in June, Three Lives & Co. Books announced that their building was up for sale. On a month-to-month lease, they hoped the future new owner would let them stay.

I just found out, thanks to a tipster, that the sale of the building went through last week. And it does not look good for Three Lives.



Papers filed with the New York City Department of Finance reveal the buyer is Oliver's Company. They paid $14 million -- that's $4 million more than the asking price.

On their website, Oliver's Realty Group is described as "the independent investment, development and brokerage arm of Oliver's Company, LLC, formed in 1995 to specialize in luxury residential real estate." Oliver's developments all look the same, from the High Line-hugging Caledonia to Tribeca Park.

The company is run by David J. Wine, a real estate professional "with unparalleled knowledge and insight into the luxury rental and condominium markets in Manhattan." Before forming Oliver's, Wine was Vice Chairman at mega-developer Related.


David J. Wine

Is it possible that Mr. Wine will let Three Lives remain? Maybe he's a real book lover. Maybe he wants to be a hero--and avoid bad PR--by preserving this essential Greenwich Village small business. But he might need some encouragement.

State Senator Brad Hoylman wrote a letter to the former owners in July, asking for a multi-year lease. Co-signed by Manhattan Borough President Gale Brewer, Assemblywoman Deborah Glick, and City Councilman Corey Johnson, the letter read: "Three Lives & Company is one of the last independent bookstores in our area. It would be a loss for small business, the uniqueness of New York City and booklovers everywhere to see Three Lives & Company close at this location."

#SaveNYC is ready to fight for Three Lives. We can't lose this great bookstore, not another one, for more high-rent blight, and then another chain, or another boutique or trendy restaurant that will shutter in a few years.

This is our city, too.

Loft's Candies

Signs sometimes come down in the city and reveal antique signs underneath. At 88 Nassau Street recently, Loft's Candies was revealed:



Loft's was once a chain store started in New York. Will the future excavation of an ancient Starbucks be as elegant?

D'Auito's For Rent

Back in 2013, D'Auito's bakery closed after nearly 80 years in business. It's been sitting shuttered since, untouched and unchanged, until now.


2013

D'Aiuto's was the home of Baby Watson, "the best cheesecake on Earth." After a decline and struggle, the family sold the building on 8th Avenue and 30th Street--on the condition that the new owner keep the business going. That seemed to work out. The family and the building owners were optimistic. As Politico wrote: "the legacy of the Baby Watson cheesecakes continues, barreling into the future buck-naked and grinning."

Then the place shuttered, for reasons unknown. The Real Deal reported that it would be demolished for an 11-story apartment-hotel.

Still, the cheesecakes kept coming. You could find them for sale a few doors down at Jessie's Express Cafe. Or at D'Aiuto's other location, the Mona Lisa Cafe in Brooklyn. Then Mona Lisa closed in 2015. The cakes stopped showing up at Jessie's. I went in to check awhile back and no one could tell me what became of the cheesecakes--or D'Aiuto's.

Recently, a For Rent sign went up in the window. Once someone takes the lease, we'll have to say goodbye to that glorious storefront design, with it colorful cheesecakes and naked baby, and the antique neon, too.


today

Gross' Balls

Back in April I reported that S&G Gross pawnbrokers had closed after 115 years in business. I worried about what would happen to their antique golden balls, the great symbol of pawnshops, hanging over 8th Avenue near 34th Street.


April

Now they're gone.

The neon sign is gone, too, and the place has been plywooded and installed with tourists who stand around and point into the sky.

Let's hope those balls are in good hands.


today

Mimi's to Famiglia

Mimi's Pizza Restaurant shuttered this summer due to a rent dispute with the landlord. Owned by the Vanacore family for 59 years, it was a beloved part of its Upper East Side neighborhood.


photo by Andrew Fine

Now, in a sickening sort of irony, a pizza restaurant chain is moving in. La Famiglia is taking Mimi's spot, replacing real family with fake family.

According to the Famiglia site, "you can find Famous Famiglia locations across leading airports, shopping centers, casinos, travel plazas, military bases, theme parks, universities, and busy urban centers."


via Twitter @JRMcGrail

Francisco's Centro Vasco

On West 23rd Street between 6th and 7th, Francisco's Centro Vasco has been in business since 1979.

They're just a few doors down from the location of this weekend's bomb explosion in Chelsea. The restaurant was not damaged, but it had to close temporarily due to the investigation. They hope to reopen today at 4:00.



As they told their customers on Facebook:



Francisco's is one of the last of a dwindling number of Spanish restaurants in the city, along with El Quijote in the nearby Chelsea Hotel and Spain, on 13th Street, recently the star of a lovely feature in the Times.

Even closing for a day can disrupt a small business. And terror can keep people away. If you're looking to support New York, Chelsea, and the people of its small business streetscape at this time, please keep Francisco's in mind for a meal or a round of drinks. Many of us could use a drink after this weekend.

Condo on Cheyenne

Remember the Cheyenne Diner, that gorgeous antique over on 9th Avenue and 33rd? It was evicted in 2008, picked up, and moved to Alabama, where, last we heard, it was sitting in pieces.

So now, after the lot sat empty for years, this condo is rising:



Once again, the city has lost a unique piece of its history and its soul for another pile of dime-a-dozen, generic schlock. They call it the Skylight House, after the Skylight Diner around the corner (same owners).

Is anyone getting tired of this yet?