August 20, 2011
A couple of weeks ago after a failed attempt at hanging out at the Chillmaster’s, I just bought a bag of beer and wandered around the East Village and took a few photos. It turned out to be a good, relaxing night, so I thought I’d try it again. This time I thought I’d go visit my old neighborhood on the Upper West Side around 75th and Broadway.
Here we are. This is the park area at 72nd and Broadway. It used to be called Verdi Square Park, but I don't think it's called that anymore. I'd research it, but it would give me a headache. They filmed "Panic in Needle Park" here.
I thought I'd get the beer at a deli I used to go to about three times a day when I lived up here. I hate it when people travel in big clusters like this on the sidewalk. Two by two, people!
Shit, the deli is now a travel agency! This sucks, it was on the block for years. Time to see if Andy's deli is still open, it was my secondary deli in the neighborhood. I hope it's not turned into a Starbucks or something.
Whew, it's still open. Let's get the beer.
Here's the beer.
I got four cans of Modela.
And the beer is bagged and a straw is inserted to make it look more like a can of soda to a cop. I spent a morning in jail once for drinking an open can of beer up here. I'm not taking any chances!
Glad to see the cleaners store is still here. Love that blue neon sign.
A portrait of a late night seller of fruit.
Here's another deli on the block. Back when Bill Maher did "Politically Incorrect" on Comedy Central he lived in this neighborhood and I saw him in here once late at night. I did a double take while seeing him and he gave me the dirtiest look, as if it's a crime to recognize him. I think he's funny and I really like his show, but I've heard he's one of the biggest assholes around and that proved it. If you don't want people to recognize you, maybe you shouldn't be on TV every week!
Here's an Upper West Side institution, Freddie and Pepper's Pizza.
They do a brisk business in here and they make a lot of dough. Oof!
Ha! Here's the Beacon Theater and look who's coming back to the neighborhood! I'll have to go and run up to the stage and do a double take and re-live a moment.
Here's the entrance to the theater.
Coming attraction posters behind bars.
Huh?
What, does this thing shoot out popcorn at show time? I'll take extra butter please!
And here's the hotel Beacon, the first place I lived when I moved here in 1993. They had residential apartments mixed in with the hotel rooms back in the day. It was a lot more run down back then. A few years ago they completely renovated it. I lived in a tiny room with a tiny kitchen and a tinier bathroom.
I went inside and there was a night manager and a guy behind the desk. I told them I lived here for four years and they didn't appear to be very interested. I asked if I could take a picture of the door where I used to live, room number 915. I was told that there was no way I could do that. The staff was a lot friendlier when I lived there.
Well, we'll just continue our tour elsewhere. You should lose the attitude Beacon Hotel people!
Here's another sad sight, the corner building that used to be the P&G bar. It once looked like this.
Now it's a yuppie cafe, Gina lasomethingorother. The logo is a woman with a breadhead. How...cute. Boy do I miss the P&G right now!
Boy, it just keeps getting worse. This used to be an old time newsstand where I bought my newspapers every day. Now it's one of these newfangled ugly metal boxes. Sad.
Another legendary place on the Upper West Side, The Fairway Market.
Great fruit and produce here.
But these Cardboard Box Men don't look too happy to be working late on a Friday night. Let's get out of here before they attack. Aaaahhh!
Further reading: My Upper West, New York Magazine, Seinfeld Locations and The Beacon Theater.
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27 Comments | Share Article | tagged BIll Maher, Beacon Theater, P&G Bar, Upper West Side | 19 References
Reader Comments (27)
Great stuff Marty, as always. Can't put into words just how soulless and depressing those metal newsstand boxes are .
As happy as I was yesterday to learn that Sam was a cool guy, I am equally pleased to learn that Bill Maher is the snarky douchebag I suspected in person. And I still find it amazing that an adult cannot walk down the street drinking a beer.
FRUIT!
@JAZ: Thanks! I agree both on the new newsstands and I've always been amazed that you can't have an open beer on the sidewalk. Craziness!
@csp: Quit calling me names!
I'm sort of meh about the new newsstands. At some point the old Green ones did have to be swapped out. Are you dissatisfied with the aesthetic or the fact the old one was swapped out? The funny thing is that the city has been planning them forever. I had a job pre-2000 were I got to see all the design proposals. (This was back before the dot-com bubble burst, 9/11, all of today's woes.) To give you an idea how long this has been going on, equally important to the design proposals as the news kiosks were public pay-phone structures.
On the other hand, you could look at the new infrastructure modernization as a hidden in plain sight dual class agenda. All of the proposed modernization sites were in Manhattan beneath 125th street. As the city was worrying about this, was the same time rent-stabilized apartments started seeing their annual increases go up from 1-3% a year to 5-8% a year. The MTA also began stating that because it had more fare paying riders, it had to increase fares from $1.00 to the progressively higher fares to the $2.25 today.
It was also at this time the city began proposing adding tolls to the East River bridges.
Blagh, blagh, what did you say commie? Do you not like the new newsstands because they represent an effort to turn Manhattan into Emerald City and keep all the munchkins further out in Oz?
Maybe it's just outside my realm of life, but why would someone put a can of soda in a bag while drinking it? That would look very suspicious to me. Wonder if cops just realize at least you're making an attempt and so they pass you by. I also don't think I've ever drank a can of anything with a straw. Weirdo. The New KC Market looks exactly like the kind of little stores I wish we had around here. Love the flower selection.
@csp: Wow, nice essay there! I don't like the new ones because they're all the same, no distinct touches to them, they're shiny and they represent uniformity as well as conformity to me. Two things I didn't move to New York to embrace.
@kari: That's just my nod to the past. When I moved here you could go anywhere with a can of beer, as long as it was in a paper bag. Giuliani put an end to that and now you get a ticket if you get caught. And if you don't pay the ticket, you may end up in jail, as I did. When I'm doing these beer wanderings, I keep my eyes wide open. The other thing with the bag is that if you do see a cop a block away you just shove it down in the bag and move right along.
That area, upper west side, is one of my favorite hangout spots. It has the Deli,,,Zabar's, H and H, Dublin House bar, and just a community feel to it. I really love your comments on these pictures,, the people four across on the sidewalk,,,hogging the whole area,,,you make these tours a lot of fun. Those peaches at the fruit market looked delicious,, need the Steve Miller song here to go with the peaches,,,need to shake that tree,,,,ha.
Here's a classic Bill Mahr/aspiring author moment for you, Marty;
http://youtu.be/BNbpSv4-4Is
Was your first day in New York anything like this?
http://youtu.be/pwuquo-Ubhk
@Al: I like the Upper West Side too. Glad you enjoy these tours! One note though: You can cross H & H off your list, another one bites the dust!
@Jaws: Those clips are great! My first day wasn't quite that scary, but similar in the fact that my apartment was wall to wall cockroaches when I walked in!
Party Mart! Sometimes I think we share a brain! The Cardboard Box Men, Marty! The Cardboard Box Men! I'm always "matrixing" ordinary objects into faces and monsters and stuff, too! WOW!
If I ever get up to New York, will you give me a tour just like the ones in your blog where we won't go to the Statue of Liberty or Times Square but instead to little bars and pizza places and drink beer and ...who am I kidding? I'll never get to the Big Apple. I'll always be stuck here in Pekin, going to the "Hole In The Wall Saloon" and attending the damned Marigold Festival and living the New York City life vicariously through you! How's that for feeling sorry for myself? What! Nooo! I was only joking, buddy! Really! Yeah, uh, I wouldn't go to New York if my life depended on it! So keep on having the time of your life and I'll,um, let's see, go down to the Illinois river and look for driftwood, Yeah, driftwood! I'll matrix it into something ...
well...it has already been said these tours w/ your comments are always great...much appreciated and enjoyed...yeah the trio of CBM did seem to scream a sadness of sorts...
Me thinks that the moment my legs begin to move, my thoughts begin to flow.
~Henry David Thoreau
rr
Great tour, & those fruit/veg/flower pics came out real nice. Ha - I always thought Maher was funny but a probably a real egocentric creep - glad you confirmed it. Yes, I like the UWS a lot too. I used to work up around Columbia, & it was a great neighborhood to hang out in. Such good places for lunch (the Mill, for one), a great deli near the Mill where I first ordered a bagel with a schmear (felt pretty dumb saying it with an English accent), & really good Spanish food all over the place. The Hungarian pastry shop! The West End (before they screwed it up)! The old Chock full of Nuts with the amazing counter. Ok, so I'm getting a little carried away here. It's changed, but I still like that part of town.
Panic in Needle Park - now there's a real downer! But that era Al is brilliant, & it's a great (dark) look at another city.
Sometimes things stew in my brain. (Good or bad thing, depends) I remembered who's design proposals I took a peek at in the ancient 1990's, an outdoor signage company (this will be fun) named Van Wagner . That's why the new shiny structures are hodge-podge and not city-wide. I have absolutely no idea as to the particulars, (who paid for what, who decided what) but the primary motivation for the swap out of the old newsstands for the new (and bus kiosks and public payphones) is increased visibility for signage. (to lease out for advertising revenue).
Like I said I'm not sure who OKed what design. In a city with a larger population then Libya or Israel, things seem to get done rather back-roomily. (No average Joe is really sure who decides what, just that it usually involves a lot of upfront money and even more money on the return). Anyway, the designs started out with a similar green painted metal theme as the old stands, but got increasingly shiny and angular. Somebody had a beret wearing art-director screaming out, "Shinier, I like shiny things!" So in conclusion, I have now involved all of MAD in my brain's hiccup, and the newsstand is all the Van Wagner''s fault.
Last of it I promise. It's relatively easy to repaint a metal box green. Resurfacing an irregular shaped shiny metal structure with chemical abrasives is a bit tougher. Wonder how the "shiny" stands will look down the road.
@Danny Maness: Looking forward to the matrixing! You should come out here sometime, you'd love it! And yes, tours will be had!
@rr: They looked sad and angry. The uprising will be soon, methinks! Great quote, tonight, as always!
@onemorefoldedsunset: I've never been able to get all the way through "Panic in Needle Park," too depressing. And I agree, a lot of the good stuff is gone, but I still like to wander around up there from time to time.
@csp: So you're saying kari and Britta are to blame? Who knew?
Yep.
@csp: Oh oh. I sense a Van Wagner moment anytime now!
Well I'm not a VanWagner (that's Kari's married name - she kept it) so I guess it's all her ex's fault. Which means I'm not offended by CSP. But eventually they would have to replace the old stands...so is it worse to go all shiny and new or get new ones that LOOK "vintage?" I vote for new looking vintage...but it sounds a little hipster-ish of me.
I love the outdoor markets - they remind me of Seattle.
@Britta: Thanks for putting the Van Wagner issue in perspective! And I don't know about having to replace them, some of the old stands had been there for decades, they just kept patching them up. And that added to their charm.
Awesome !
PS ... bumblefuck Wisconsin blows !
Well I would say you could just blame it on my ex, but I'm not one of those kinds of ex's. Damn Van Wagner's though. It's a love/hate relationship.
Ooops. Nearly impossible to keep this short, those boxes are actually evil. (I can't really do the topic justice, but anyway.) The boxes aren't about the public good, it's about advertising revenue and corporatization. Van Wagner was just 1 of 4 companies bidding on the "public furniture" city contract. The winning company who won with a disputed billion dollar bid is a Spanish company named Cemusa. (the losers sued for unfair bidding practices on the part of the city, which will receive $400 million worth of free S. American new NYC Olympic bid ads from Cemusa) In a nutshell, the owners of the newsstands have had their property seized by the city, which in turn has granted it to Cemusa for the next 20 years. Cemusa will "update" the newsstands and charge the former owners rent. I found it odd that Cemusa won the bid because from personal experience I know that Cemusa knows nothing about printing (originally the contract's crown jewel was an estimated $2 billion worth of printed "scroller" ads) whereas the losing bidders did. Enter video. Cemusa will be installing a fuck-ton of video display structures in its newsstands. Eventually they will transform NYC into Blade Runner sans dirigibles. I'm guessing the $2 billion est. print ads Cemusa was to expect, gets bigger with video ads. (Do you want video ads? Doesn't matter, you've got them.) Also interesting to point out, part of Cemusa's "outdoor furniture" contract are bus stop kiosks. They are responsible for snow removal at said kiosks. Last winter they decided that was more of a guideline then a rule, and decided not to pay to remove any snow but rather have the city eventually get around to it on NYC's dime. Cemusa will also be installing public pay toilets, but that is delayed due to manufacturing problems by the Italian company they subcontracted out to. All of this (including the plight of Jerry Delakas) was well covered by EV Grieve, Jemimah's Vanishing NY, curbed, forgotten NY, MAD, etc.; but I was hibernating. So now I'm done on the subject. (really? yea!) I'll hide it here in the back of yesterday's MAD post. [side-note, sucks to be a printer w/ Cemusa around]
@GENE: Welcome back! What part of Wisconsin were you in?
@kari: Nice to see you not wanting to blame anyone.
@csp: Little did I know what I was unleashing by putting up that newsstand photo!
Damn @csp, you scare me sometimes.
@Kari: Good.
Bill Maher has a giant head. Or maybe just a tiny body. Either way, he's got that Celine Dion bobble going on. Bobble bobble bobble.
@Biff: He's a tiny little man with a giant head. No wonder he's sour!