The historical and present day happenings in and around the landmark buildings known as Colonnade Row and NoHo, the surrounding neighborhood - and whatever the hell else I feel like writing about
The long awaited documentary, The Vanishing City, is screening Friday, November 6th and you're invited. This film focus on how New York City has been transformed into a 'luxury product' - Thanks Mayor Mike! - and has been in the works for several years by Jen Senko and Fiore DeRosa where they have interviewed hundreds of displaced residents and mom and pop shops.
Literally hundreds of luxury high-rises are in development in Manhattan and the outer boroughs. While low-income housing such as Mitchell-Lama is being phased out, the new low and moderate income units being constructed are grossly inadequate. It is increasingly obvious that the economic development is not being evenly spread and that New York is moving closer and closer to a two-tier city of rich and poor.
Rumors are swirling in the Cooper Square neighborhood that the universally despised and poorly received D-list magnet, The Cooper Square Hotel, has quietly been put on the market. Our information comes from a well-connected source to the large white shaft who knows both insiders and consultants working for the property's investors. The source said that there simply isn't enough tourist business in the worsening luxury hotel economy, and that Andre Balazs's The Standard Hotel has gobbled up all the glitz and glamour that the Cooper Square had hoped to attract. Not helping matters were the stinking reviews of Govind Armstrong's Table 8 restaurant in CSH which had hoped to seduce what's left of the New York's shrinking fashion and media elite. The Standard, on the other hand, has been receiving praises from top to bottom on all aspects of their rooms, service, and various restaurants and has lured the city's most sought after waiters, hostesses, and managers with generous salaries as well as the scene-making crowd that ensures the lemmings will follow them with full wallets. Adding to the mess, is the persistent story about the feuds between the CSH developing partners and their hired henchmen. NYU, you may have just found your next dorm. Stay tuned. Click here for more background on the eyesore.
THE VANISHING CITY
Monday, September 28th
7PM
Dixon Place
161 Chrystie Street
(Delancey/Rivington)
Tickets regularly $15
Special $10 Rosh Hashana discount!
Buy Here and put RoshHash in promo code for $10 tickets!
www.dixonplace.org
212 219-0736
The Historical and Cultural Price of the Changing Bowery
The Bowery:Past, Present, and Future:
A celebration of its richly diverse heritage,
and a cautionary discussion on how reckless overdevelopment is
displacing residents, small businesses, cultural diversity, and
the area’s low-rise, historic charm.
David Mulkins, a history teacher and co-founder of the Bowery Alliance of Neighbors, is curating the third installment of The Vanishing City, the popular community, historical, and preservation series launched by Dixon Place in early 2009.www.boweryneighbors.org
Program panelists include:
*Doris Diether, whom The Observer recently called “The Grand Dame of New York City Land Use.” One of the city’s foremost zoning experts, Diether has been an active CB2 board member and community preservationist since the 1960s.Most recently, Diether designed the “East Bowery Preservation Plan.
*Helena Wong, representative from the Committee Against Asian-American Violence which has evolved into a leading community activist group
fighting for tenants rights and local preservation.Most recently, CAAAV/Chinatown Tenants Union has represented the low income tenants of 81 Bowery who were mass evicted last winter and only recently returned to their home.http://www.caaav.org/
*Eric Ferrara, Founder and executive director, Lower East Side History Project and expert on immigrant
and early gang history of the lower east side.
Here's what I've been up to for the past couple of months (and will continue to be through August 6). The 18th Annual HOT! Festival at Dixon Place. There's so much wacky stuff going on that you just need to go to the website and see the schedule. Check back here for reviews and occasional Kirby special discounts. I'm pleased to say I'm the official Hot Festival Hot Dog and I'd just love for you to stop by, see a show, and scratch my hiney. Ya'll come!
Leave it to the New York Post to blatantly rip one us off without any credit. Jeremiah's story about the Cooper Square Hotel was stolen from him without a single ounce of credit - and it was so obvious. Go here for the whole story and email them to complain that if it weren't for the bloggers, none of the real neighborhood stories would ever see the light of day. Typical lazy staff writers thinking nobody would notice. Not in this neighborhood!
