Urbanite

Block parties find a home on-line

Tuesday June 16, 2009 1:05 PM By Heather Haddon

By Heather Haddon

The block party, the most old-fashioned of festivities, has gone high-tech.

Open space advocates today launched “Block Party NYC,” a Web site that tracks parties planned by registered users on a Google map. The site coachers party-happy New Yorkers in getting through the red tape of holding a street fest (permits, community boards, blah) and lets hosts advertise their affairs on a calendar.

So far, listed parties include the “Jerome Street Gospel Bash” in July, and hipster bands and a stoop sale on Havemeyer Street this Sunday.

New York averages 3,000 block parties a year. The site also includes information about applying to new $500 grants to host a street fete.

For more information, see www.blockpartynyc.org.

Dialing up old telephone exchange in Financial District

Monday May 25, 2009 6:36 PM By Rolando Pujol

Here's a good old-fashioned mural, advertising office space downtown. Nothing too fancy as far as graphics and presentation go.

But what makes it a keeper is the old OX (Oxford, we presume) telephone exchange in the number.

Priceless.

-- Rolando Pujol

Mel Gibson - Separated at Birth

Monday April 13, 2009 12:39 PM By Pete Catapano

By Pete Catapano

WIth the news today that Mel Gibson is getting divorced after 29 years, there's somewhat fresh pictures of the star all over the Internet today.

One in particular caught my attention. Well, mostly the fact that Gibson's facial hair and sheer insanity of his expression make him look a lot like the Joker from the 70s game show "The Joker's Wild" hosted by Jack Barry. You be the judge.

(Gibson photo, Getty)

Still 'Crazy' after all these years

Sunday April 12, 2009 12:55 PM By Rolando Pujol

By Rolando Pujol

A subway ad we ran across recently for J&R Music World offers a who's who of once-famous New York electronic chain stores that have bitten the dust.

The J&R ad reminds us that the lower Manhattan store has been around since 1971, and in the years since has been "Crazier than Eddie," "Towering over Tower," and "Beating the Wiz." Tower Records is long gone, and the Wiz, which promised that nobody could beat its prices, also sleeps with the fishes.

But if there's one defunct electronics chain that really revs up the nostalgia engines, and non-native New Yorkers inevitably learn about if they stick around here long enough, it's Crazy Eddie.

For decades, actor Jerry Carroll appeared on the New York airwaves playing Crazy Eddie, a character who animatedly and breathlessly hawked deals on reel-to-reel recorders, eight-track tapes and Beta VCRs.

Yes, it's been a long time since Crazy Eddie existed, but all you have to say to any New Yorker over the age 30 is "Crazy Eddie, his prices are insane" and soon they're talking about the Ritz Thrift Shop, the Money Store and other classic NYC commercials.

Anyway, Crazy Eddie went belly up in 1989, and its founder, Eddie Antar, fled the country after some shady business dealings and eventually landed in jail.

But, believe it or not, J&R may soon be competing with Crazy Eddie again. Someone's actually working to bring the chain back to life, and if that weren't enough, Danny DeVito is said to be directing a movie about the real Crazy Eddie. Now that's positively insane.

Astroland is but a memory, but Coney Island is still 'Really FUN, Really OPEN'

Sunday April 5, 2009 4:01 PM By Rolando Pujol

Wonder Wheel Amusement Park and The Cyclone opened for business on Coney Island's first 2009 weekend yesterday. (Photos: RJ Mickelson/amNY)

By Andrew Breiner

Special to amNewYork

Astroland is gone, but Coney Island isn’t.

As New Yorkers returned to the seaside neighborhood for the start of a new amusement season yesterday, they couldn’t miss the city’s slogan for Coney Island — “Really FUN, Really OPEN.”

And while turnout was light for an opening day, riders still screamed their lungs out on venerable rides like the Wonder Wheel and the famous Cyclone rollercoaster. But many visitors came to mourn the empty space where the iconic park once stood.

Since its construction in 1962, Astroland was a central neighborhood attraction, with its futuristic space theme that quickly acquired a kitschy charm.

“You see Coney Island in an old movie, and it’s always a shot of Astroland,” said Pat Ritter, 53, of Bay Ridge.The Astroland name survives on the Cyclone rollercoaster.

But in 2006, the Albert family, which had owned the park since the start, sold it to Thor Equities for $30 million.

After the summer of 2008, Astroland was gone. Where there were once rides like the Tilt-a-Whirl and Dante’s Inferno, there is now an empty concrete lot.

The 270-foot Astro Tower is the only recognizable piece of the park that remains, standing high above the pipes, cinderblocks, and pieces of rides that litter the space below.

Thor Equities announced last week that it would bring 25 rides to Coney Island later this spring, as well as new sideshows this summer.

City officials, meanwhile, are seeking to rezone 19 blocks of Coney Island and establish a 27-acre indoor and outdoor entertainment and amusement area. The Bloomberg administration also plans to find a single operator for a 12-acre amusement park on city-controlled land. They must acquire 10 acres of land from Thor for the project.

Mary Paul, 54, who lives on nearby Ocean Avenue and rides the Cyclone every year on opening day, said the area is suffering.

“It’s pretty empty for an opening day with such nice weather,” she said. “It’s because there’s less to do now. They used to have such great rides.”

Long-dead flowers left by Astroland fans adorn the chain-link fence that seals the site off from the bustling boardwalk. Passersby stop to look at the site, remembering their visits last year or 30 years ago.

Phil Fried, 42, of Flatbush, grew up going to Coney Island, rode the Cyclone for the first time at age 18. He had not been back in years, but when he heard Astroland was gone, he felt he had to see what was left.

“I hate to see it go,” he said. “This is the kind of thing that brings money into Brooklyn. We can’t just tear it down.”

Deno’s Wonder Wheel Amusement Park does brisk business as the only major park left in the neighborhood, but Ritter says it isn’t enough.

“I like the Wonder Wheel itself, but the park is for kids,” she said.

An Art Deco gateway to the Village

Thursday April 2, 2009 10:20 AM By Rolando Pujol

At 253 W. 13th St., at the intersection of West 13th Street, Horatio Street and Greenwich Avenue, is a prime example of an Art Deco building.

Completed in 1932, the Greenwich Substation, also known as Substation 235, was built to supply power to the adjacent 8th Avenue IND subway.

According to a registration form with the National Register of Historic Places, the three-story building with embossed aluminum doors was constructed in a style similar to telephone company buildings of the same era. It is owned by MTA NYC Transit.

Text and photo: Jefferson Siegel

Capitol Fishing Tackle sign resurfaces better than ever

Monday March 30, 2009 12:32 PM By Rolando Pujol

The sign outside the shop's new location on 132 W. 36th St. (Melinda Hsia)

By Melinda Hsia

Special to amNewYork

The Capitol Fishing Tackle Co. has been around for more than a century and

boasts classic fishing rods among many beautiful antiques, but its most eye-catching piece is its brilliant red and green neon sign above its front door.

The sign had beamed above the tackle shop since 1941. But when the shop vacated its longtime home at the Hotel Chelsea on West 23rd Street in 2006 and moved to the Garment District, the sign went missing.

Just recently, it has been returned to its rightful place outside the shop’s new home following its first-ever refurbishing.

"I have a great love for it," said Richard Collins, the shop’s owner.The neon sign with its bold red capitol letters is unusual, because it is rare to find one for a tackle shop. According to Kevin Walsh, the editor of the Web site Forgotten NY, most neon signs in the city belong to liquor stores, bar, and diners. Other

well-known neon signs from the 1940s illuminate the storefronts of such

establishments as the Irish pub Dublin House on West 79th Street just off

Broadway.

Finding the right person to restore these glowing works of art is not easy.

After a harrowing experience with a larger sign company, Collins sent his neon sign to Paul Signs in Brooklyn. There, the sign was carefully disassembled part-by-part

and meticulously cleaned before being measured for new parts and put back

together.

In 2006, Collins contemplated closing the tackle shop. The rent had tripled

since he purchased the company in 1974 but Collins wanted to continue the

legacy of family ownership that began 112 years ago. "I am the third generation in

the fishing tackle business," said Collins, 54, and his son – whom he

describes as a “fishing nut” - will be the fourth.

After a year and a half of detailed work, the sign is not ready to light up the

street just yet. A few pieces are undergoing finishing touches before the

neon sign can relive its former glory but its owner eagerly awaits.

"I could have two new signs for how much that one cost me to restore," Collins said.

Throwback Thursday: Afternoon fun on PIX from 1979

Thursday January 29, 2009 9:18 AM By Rolando Pujol

Via robatsea2008 on YouTube

Here's a great commercial break shown during a presentation of "The Magic Garden" on WPIX. The old-school treats include an ad for mail-order Disney children's books (complete with complimentary plastic Mickey bookholder!) and a commercial for Franken Berry and Count Chocula cereals. There's also a nice long ad for "The Tom & Jerry Hour," shown at 4 p.m., narrated by longtime station announcer Ralph Lowenstein.

Classic stuff. Rewind to 1979 below.

-- Rolando Pujol

30 years ago tonight: Nelson Rockefeller dies -- and a tabloid frenzy ensues

Sunday January 25, 2009 7:18 PM By Rolando Pujol

On this edition of "Eyewitness News," John Johnson reported that the former governor had died at his office in Rockefeller Center. But there was a lot more to the story. (Via realagentofSHIELD on YouTube)

Thirty years ago Monday tonight, former New York Gov. Nelson Rockefeller died of a heart attack in Manhattan at the age of 70. The initial reports had the governor passing away at his office in Rockefeller Center, toiling away on a book about his modern art collection, one of Rocky's passions. But indeed, that was not the whole story. As the days progressed, a far more complicated and lurid picture emerged of the former vice president's final hours.

It turns out Rockefeller was not at his namesake building at all, but at his townhouse a few blocks up at 13 W. 54th St. And he was in the company of a young aide, 25-year-old Megan Marshack, when he was stricken. The tabloids had a field day with the death of the Standard Oil scion, with the story's elements of infidelity, indiscretion and cover-up. Disturbingly, help for the stricken governor was not called for up to an hour after his attack, and the details of the case proved too irresistible for "Saturday Night Live." A sketch that aired on Feb. 10, 1979 began with Don Pardo intoning: "'Emergency' starring Megan Marshack will not be seen tonight so that we may bring you this special presentation."

The story of Rockefeller's death is now steeped in city and political lore. Today, we present how New Yorkers found out about his death on the next day's edition of "Eyewitness News," with John Johnson and Anna Bond at the anchor desk. It's a remarkable report for its depth of coverage, and a very literate obituary by Roger Sharp. Ernie Anastos narrates dramatic footage of Rockefeller's arrival at the hospital, and there are shots of Rocky's wife, "Happy," arriving on the scene later. Click below for a look at where the story stood before its tabloid elements began to emerge, when the greatest blot on Rockefeller's reputation was still described as his handling of the Attica prison riot in 1971.

-- Rolando Pujol

A U.S. Mail letter box survives on West 51st Street

Thursday January 22, 2009 9:27 AM By Rolando Pujol

An old-style U.S. Mail letter box hanging in the lobby of the Women's National Republican Club on West 51st Street.

These types of letter boxes used to be ubiquitous throughout the country, hanging on poles, buildings and other structures.

Photo and text: Jefferson Siegel

Cheyenne Diner: Saved (again!) and moving to Alabama

Wednesday January 14, 2009 1:03 PM By Rolando Pujol

The Cheyenne Diner on a rainy April 2008 night, just days before it closed. That neon might shine again in Birmingham, Ala. (Photos by Rolando Pujol)

By Marlene Naanes

After the collapse of a Red Hook rescue plan left the historic Cheyenne Diner imperiled again, the shuttered Manhattan greasy spoon has been saved thanks to a little Southern hospitality.

The rail car-style diner could soon serve up home-style cooking in Birmingham, Ala., according to Michael Perlman, who has led the effort to save the Cheyenne, which would become the only free-standing diner in that city.

The fate of the neon-lit Cheyenne Diner, which has been vacant for the past nine months at 33rd Street and Ninth Avenue, sat in the balance after a much-heralded move to Red Hook fell apart. The Manhattan Bridge could not fit the diner by flatbed truck and a move by barge proved very expensive.

After a cry for help, two owners of a Birmingham investment group, Joel Owens and Patti Miller, took a tour of the iconic eatery Wednesday and signed on to move it down South, Perlman said.

“I’m very proud that I located a couple that value the diner’s architectural and cultural history, and they are planning to restore and open it for future generations to cherish,” said Perlman.

The owner of the diner’s lot set a six-week deadline for the building’s removal, Perlman said. The Cheyenne will likely be transported in two pieces on a flatbed truck by a rigger who has moved about 50 diners nationwide.

"Cheyenne's going to be happy," Miller said. "We're going to give it new life."

The Cheyenne could be included in a Birmingham tourist attraction with a special events center and classic car and miniature diner museums, Perlman said. The new owners put down a $1,000 deposit Wednesday. The total cost of the purchase will be $5,000.

The owner of the Cheyenne property, George Papas, had been working closely with Perlman to relocate the diner and avoid destroying it.

Papas, who could not be reached for comment Wednesday, had said he plans to build a residential and commercial development on the site.

Cheyenne: Urbanite coverage:

Cheyenne saved and moving to Red Hook.

Oh, Cheyenne, a lamentation with some night photography

Diner for sale: Got $7,900?

Bid to save Cheyenne

amNY photo galleries

Great NYC diners, past and present

Remembering the Munson Diner

Classic signs ruined by 99-cent shop's mega mural

Tuesday December 30, 2008 11:17 AM By Rolando Pujol

BEFORE

Photos by Rolando Pujol

A few weeks back, we told you about these great old hand-painted ghost signs that surfaced in Herald Square recently.

Well, take a good look at the picture above. It's a part of history now.

In the weeks since, Jack's 99 Cent shop painted a huge mural on the side of the West 32nd Street building, and most of the signs disappeared under the new coat of paint.

We thought those signs were certainly worth more than 99 cents. In fact, they were priceless. But apparently, they're worth nothing at all.

-- Rolando Pujol

AFTER

Vintage signage: Phil's Stationery in midtown

Sunday December 21, 2008 3:15 PM By Rolando Pujol

The sign for Phil's Stationery at 9 E. 47th St., is one hardy and hard-to-miss holdout. Its bold yellow, mix of fonts and little mid-century stars compel contemplation. And as we did just that, we noticed a small tag for Sign World, the company that created it. That tag itself carries a little old-school surprise: It bear an old telephone exchange (The NA exchange, short for NAtional?), which helps us date the sign to before the early 1970s.

And, as pointed out here, you have to love the misspelling of Xerox as "Zerox."

-- Rolando Pujol

Photos: Rolando Pujol

Endangered NYC: Saving architectural treasures in the outer boroughs

Thursday December 18, 2008 4:21 PM By Rolando Pujol

This is amNY's third annual special report on preservation. Previous coverage can be found here and here.

By Lana Bortolot

Special to amNewYork

Manhattan’s iconic architecture has long given the borough favored-child status

at the Landmarks Preservation Commission.

Of some 1,210 individual landmark designations in the five boroughs since the commission’s inception in 1965, 779 are in Manhattan, as well as 64 out of 105 designated Historic Districts and extensions.

But today, the outer boroughs are increasingly enjoying the attention their architectural treasures deserve, powered by community activism, even as certain beloved structures still meet the wrecking ball.

“The tone has changed out there,” says Peg Breen, president of New York Landmarks Conservancy, a private advocacy group. “I think there’s been a heightened level of interest and there’s a pent-up demand.”It’s an area that Robert B. Tierney, Landmarks Preservation chairman, agrees has been out of sight and mind.

“There wasn’t the necessary focus and attention [outside Manhattan],” Tierney said, noting that his commission has redirected its attention to the boroughs. “They’re no longer overlooked. And I think the record of what’s already been done should give people reassurance that we are focused very markedly on issues in those boroughs.”

Indeed, recent data provided by the commission show an increased number of designations outside of Manhattan. Of the 1,158 building designated in fiscal year 2007, 1,114—or 96 percent—are outside of Manhattan.

All three historic districts designated in fiscal year 2008 were in the outer boroughs—two of which, DUMBO and Eberhard Faber Pencil Company, responded directly to concerns over the loss of Brooklyn’s historic industrial waterfront. By the end of fiscal year 2009, the commission will have designated more districts outside of Manhattan than any other administration since its inception, says commission spokeswoman Elisabeth de Bourbon.

Yet, despite the improved record, outer borough residents feel ignored, and voice their frustrations on blogs devoted to politics and preservation. Certainly, losses this year, like that of the Bay Ridge Methodist Church, leave some unconvinced the city is doing enough.

“We've had some heartbreaking losses," says Simeon Bankoff, executive director of the Historic Districts Council. "Even people who don’t go to church get upset when churches are ripped down.” He noted, "People often are unaware of the special

character of a place until it’s threatened: they have their own personal Penn Stations.

The virtual dialogue—often heated and infused with both fact and opinion—links citizen brigades throughout the boroughs so that preservationists in Queens can empathize with (or criticize) like- minded activists in the Bronx. And whether they face the loss of a historic church or the addition of a big-box retailer, they present a unified front to elected officials and the city landmarks commission to make a difference.

Despite the losses of beloved buildings, Tierney says “There’s a

whole other narrative of buildings being saved and we don’t want

people to lose sight of that. “

So, here, in amNewYork’s third annual look at what might be lost,

preservationists post their wish list of sites to be saved.

BROOKLYN

Erasmus Hall Academy (Tiffany L. Clark)

Erasmus Hall Academy

911 Flatbush Ave., Flatbush

architect unknown, 1787

Protected from view by its Gothic surroundings, but rotting away from neglect, is the original Georgian-Federalist wooden structure of the academy whose founders include John Jay, Alexander Hamilton and Aaron Burr. The oldest secondary school in New York is designated a city landmark, but suffers from years of neglect. Restoration efforts are locked in a stalemate between the Erasmus alumni, which are rallying to restore it, and the School Construction Authority.

Brooklyn Rapid Transit Power House (RJ Mickelson)

Brooklyn Rapid Transit Power House

322 Third Ave.

architect unknown, 1902

Eligible for the National Register and under LPC review, this Romanesque Revival powerhouse on the Gowanus Canal is all that remains of a massive complex that provided power for Brooklyn’s steam railroads, elevated trains, and street cars. If renovated, says Melissa Baldrock, a preservationist at the Municipal Art Society, “the building could be a great space for small manufacturers who could rent out smaller spaces within the building, for a large manufacturer, or for an arts and cultural space.”

The Shore Theater put Coney Island on the map as a year-round destination. Below, the the fate of the Astroland rocket is up in the air. (Photos: Tiffany L. Clark)

Coney Island’s historic resources, various dates

Mermaids may mourn the demise of Astroland (b. 1962; d. 2008), but it’s Coney Island’s other historic resources that now face threats. Several 19th- and early-20th-century buildings are endangered , says Baldrock. Coney Island’s entertainment history is reflected in Henderson’s Music Hall, where the Marx Brothers first performed in 1907, and the Shore Theater, which put Coney Island on the map as a year-round destination. It contains a theater for 2,500 people, but now sits vacant.

While landmarks such as the Cyclone, Parachute Jump, and Wonder Wheel are protected, Astroland’s other icons, including the Astrotower and the Rocket, are not. Like the parachute jump (from New York's 1937 world’s fair), the Astrotower is part of the local skyline. Still operable, at 270 feet height high, it provides unparalleled views of the area. The rocket, while not a ride, is one of Coney Island’s most photographed icons—a flight of fancy on its own.

Gowanus Canal area

Now that its cleaner than it’s been in years, the Gowanus Canal is ready for its photo op — and an onslaught of development interest. Says Rick Bell, executive director of the American Institute of Architects’ New York chapter, “When you ask what’s the best and highest use for the waterfront, it’s seldom going to be something that retains industrial use. Chances are you’re looking at housing when the market picks back up.” And current upzoning plans would permit just that along the northern blocks of the canal, putting the historic use of the canal—in operation since the 1850s—and its industrial character at risk. Says Lisa Kersavage, director of advocacy and policy at Municipal Art Society, “The city ought to be doing more to support the manufacturing industries rather than upzoning for residential. It’s better to be barging than trucking through our brownstone neighborhoods.”

The Red Hook grain silos(RJ Mickelson/amNY)

Red Hook grain silos

Columbia Street at the Gowanus Canal, 1922

After a 50-year vacancy, the concrete grain silos adjacent to Red Hook Park on the Gowanus Canal present a number of possibilities, and their future treatment will significantly impact the character of their surroundings. Keeping the industrial feel of the silos, Bell says, would win a nod of approval from modernist architect Le Corbusier, who admired the unusual landscape presented by Midwestern grain silos. But, Ikea’s success there, he says, raises the more likely possibility of mixed-use projects with a retail component.

BRONX

Cass Gilbert's Morris Park station (also known as Van Nest station) in the Bronx (Tiffany L. Clark)

Rail stations, various locations

Cass Gilbert, 1908

Gilbert may be better known as the architect of the Woolworth Building, but his more humble works have not gone unnoticed by preservationists. Strung along the Harlem line of the New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad, only three of the ornate stations remain in the Bronx, and are in serious decline. A fourth in Pelham Parkway is in near ruins. Evoking European influences — one in French Renaissance style and another likened to an Italian palazzo —the stations have potential for restoration and occupancy. Amtrak’s efforts to find tenants have been unsuccessful and the advancing decay of the stations make restoration more costly as time goes by.

Kingsbridge Armory (Tiffany L. Clark)

Kingsbridge Armory

29 W. Kingsbridge Road

Pilcher & Tachau, 1912

A stunning neighborhood landmark, the Romanesque Revival armory is

said to be the world's largest, built as a militia drill floor. A recent proposal by the Related Companies includes a retail/entertainment mix that will bring the site back into active use, but also raises concerns of turning the Romanesque Revival armory into a regional shopping destination. Any restoration, however, will have to take into account the enormous costs of stabilization and the scale of the undertaking. But experts say it’s worth it—the building “really defines the neighborhood’s character,” says Bell. “What would it look like if it were gone? What would they relate to as a landmark?”

Noonan Plaza Apartments in the Bronx (Tiffany L. Clark)

Noonan Plaza Apartments

105-145 W. 168th St.

Horace Ginsbern, 1931

These embellished Art Deco-Mayan apartment buildings contained a 15,000-square-foot garden with flowering shrubs, mosaic walkways and water features. “It’s a particular style we don’t see a lot of,” says Andrea Goldwyn, director of public policy at New York Landmarks Conservancy. Heard in 1992, but not yet designated by the city, Goldwyn added, “We want to stay on top of it and bring it to people’s attention.”

Brady Court at 754-764 Brady Ave. in Pelham Parkway (RJ Mickelson)

Pelham Parkway South

Bounded by Pelham Parkway, Bronx Park East, Bronxdale and Matthew avenues

It’s not yet a historic district, but the dense cluster of 1920s and 1930s apartment here represent a building type that’s “almost entirely overlooked by LPC, but is key to an understanding of the history of housing in the city,” says Andrew S. Dolkart, director of the Historic Preservation Program Columbia University School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation. The six-story buildings comprise a cohesive housing tract that captures the fancy of the era: Moorish embellishments, Spanish tile, crenellated rooflines and courtyards, as well as serving the cultural needs of the middle- and working-class community that lived here.

QUEENS

A scattering of 19th-century houses is all that remains of Astoria Village, an enclave beneath the newly renamed Robert F. Kennedy Bridge. Multi-family buildings and other development have replaced gracious homes, some from the Civil War-era. While it’s unlikely to qualify for district designation, individual buildings may still qualify for landmark status, and protecting them would keep some vestige of the village. The neighborhood also contains two important early churches and burial grounds, including the Irish Famine Cemetery.

Unprotected, and with large home lots, neighborhoods such as Broadway-Flushing and Richmond Hill, the Historic Districts Council says, are “fertile ground for McMansions and other out of character development.” In Forest Hills, preservationists are fighting to spare Neo-Renaissance rowhouses on 72nd Avenue (formerly Roman Avenue) dating back to 1906, and rare survivors of the oldest extant development here.

Michael Perlman, chair of the Rego-Forest Preservation Council, hopes to find an arts or culture group for the empty Ridgewood Theater. (Tiffany L. Clark)

Ridgewood Theater

55-27 Myrtle Ave., Ridgewood

Thomas White Lamb, opened 1916

After 91 years, the ornate Ridgewood Theater, the longest continuously operating theater in the country, closed in 2008. Up for sale, plans for its next incarnation are unknown, but preservationists fear alteration, not restoration, of the exterior. A local group hopes to install an arts organization in the building, and a landmarks commission spokesperson said the theater is under “active consideration,” and the commission has calendared the Ridgewood Historic District.

Schleicher Mansion

11-41 123rd St., College Point

architect unknown, circa 1851

Once boasting water views, and now at the core of a traffic roundabout, the Hermann Schleicher mansion is a decaying piece of Gilded Age architecture—one of a few remaining mansions built by German industrialists here. Converted to a hotel, then an apartment building, the building stands vacant after tenants were forced to evacuate this summer after a city inspection. It was calendared for LPC hearing on Dec. 9, which halts demolition by the owner or a developer who would do the same, but if not designated, this mansion and its eclectic history will be lost.

Elmhurst Library (Tiffany L. Clark)

Elmhurst Library

86-01 Broadway, Elmhurst

architect unknown, opened 1906

One of seven Carnegie libraries built in Queens, the much-used Elmhurst Library will be demolished for a larger building. What the Carnegie libraries lack in grandeur, they make up for with distinctive architecture that reflects the character of the communities they serve. “Normally you would not want to see a Carnegie library demolished, but they made a pretty compelling case that this is what they had to do to serve the population,” says Breen.

STATEN ISLAND

HISTORIC HOMES

Staten Island’s vernacular homes and mansions are in danger of being lost. Many sit on large plots, making them attractive development sites. Owners of larger homes struggle to maintain them, lacking a strong preservation ethic, are often resistant to landmarking. Preservationists continue to fight for the houses. “Not only are they architecturally interesting, but they really speak to Staten Island’s maritime history. When they’re gone, it severs our links to that history,” says Goldwyn.

Captain Abram and Ann Dissosway Cole House

4927 Arthur Kill Road, Tottenville, circa 1840s

One of a few remaining houses that once housed prominent industrial and maritime merchants, the 19th-century Greek Revival, owned by members of the Cole family until the 1970s, was calendared in the 1960s and remains unprotected by landmark designation. Preservationists support landmarking the house, but the owner has asked the commission to remove the house from consideration so he may demolish it.

U.S. Coast Guard Station (Tiffany L. Clark)

The U.S. Coast Guard Station formerly the U.S. Light-House Service

1 Bay Street, St. George

Alfred B. Mullett, 1865-71

A designated city landmark, the administration building is one of the few surviving French Second Empire buildings by the architect who also designed the Carson City and San Francisco mints, the Customs house in Knoxville and the Executive Office Building in Washington, D.C. The complex was the holding station for materials destined for lighthouses along the east coast, and also a research site for lighthouse equipment. In poor condition, it’s empty and awaits a plan.

S. R. Smith Infirmary

101 Stanley Ave., Stapleton

Alfred Barlow & B.L Gilbert, 1889

Modeled after the Cancer Hospital on Central Park West and 106th Street (now condominiums), this Victorian “castle” stands abandoned. Plans to covert the turreted building into residences some 20 years ago failed and without occupancy of some kind, the building will continue to deteriorate. A landmark request was heard in 1991, but it remains undesignated and unprotected.

* * *

2007: HOW THEY FARED

Successes and losses mark last year’s “10 (more) to Save.” Here’s how they fared.

Donnell Library Center

20 W. 53rd St.

Closed and will be razed for a hotel.

Morris B. Sanders House

219 E. 49th St.

Designated landmark November, 2008.

George Washington Bridge Bus Station

Broadway, between West 178-179th streets

In October 2008, Port Authority unveiled plans for a $152 million renovation, expected to begin within two years. The station does not have landmark protection and its modernist design could be compromised.

James A. Farley Post Office Building

421 Eighth Ave.

Still under study, but Madison Square Garden has removed itself from a proposal to relocate to Farley, relieving fears of the arena overtaking the historic interior.

Abolitionist homes

Nos. 231 and 233 Duffield Street

New plans for this block of homes included an Underground Railroad museum and sale of air rights for a new hotel. But negotiations between the owner and developer have stalled, and the project may be scaled back.

1847 James Sloan and Abigail Hopper Gibbons home

339 W. 29th St.

A stop work order has halted further construction here. LPC has calendared landmarking the area as a historic district, which would include the Hopper Gibbons House.

Federal buildings

Nos. 94, 94-1/2 and 96 Greenwich St.

Remain undesignated and unprotected while an ownership dispute continues. A hotel developer wants to purchase air rights and demolish at least one building.

508-510 and 732-734 West End Ave

Buildings at 732-734 failed to meet the criteria for designation and have been emptied awaiting demolition. Rent-stabilized tenants at 508-510, are fighting to have their leases renewed.

Congregation Shearith Israel

8 W. 70th St.

Landmark West! and neighbors filed a lawsuit in New York State Supreme Court in September challenging the NYC Board of Standards and Appeals approval of seven zoning variances for a nine-story luxury condo here. CSI has delayed construction.

Admiral's Row

Brooklyn Navy Yard

The Brooklyn Navy Yard Development Corp. is the likely buyer of site from the Army National Guard, and preservation groups continue to press for plans that would include the historic buildings in future development.

Brooklyn Waterfront

The Eberhard Faber Pencil Company, DUMBO and parts of the former Domino Sugar Corporation Refinery were designated in the past year. The Austin, Nichols & Company Warehouse will be converted to residences. Red Hook is on watch.

Brownstone Brooklyn

Heard by LPC in October, Prospect Heights is on its way to landmarking. Yet other brownstone neighborhoods—Carroll Gardens Wallabout and parts of Brooklyn Heights—remain on watch.

The Franklin Building

186 Remsen St., Downtown Brooklyn

Still vacant and reported to need too much work and priced too high to make habitation viable in the current market. The building next door was demolished, leaving the Franklin vulnerable to the same fate.

The humble diner

Closure of the famed Cheyenne Diner (411 Ninth Ave.) after 68 years is a reminder that these working-class eateries are still at risk.

Religious Buildings

Development plans for West-Park Presbyterian (86th Street and Amsterdam Avenue) have halted while a local group challenges a demolition permit. Bay Ridge United Methodist, the “Green Church,” was demolished for condominium development. St. Saviour’s in Maspeth was dismantled and awaits resurrection on a new site in All Faiths Cemetery.

****

They’ll save Manhattan

amNewYork asked preservationists for a wish list of Manhattan sites to be landmarked. Here’s what they said:

Andrew Berman, executive director

Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation

“The twin threats of New York University and private development have put the South Village area under enormous pressure, and landmark designation is needed now more than ever to preserve [that] wonderful neighborhood. It was entirely left out of the Greenwich Village Historic District in 1969, largely because its working class architecture was not considered worthy of preservation at the time.”

Andrew S. Dolkart, director

Historic Preservation Program, Columbia University School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation

“Teachers College, a spectacular and long-overlooked complex of buildings where five different architects and architectural firms designed nine separate and interconnected buildings, creating an extraordinary feeling of unity, using various forms of Gothic-inspired design. [It’s] a major institution in the history of New York and in the history of educational pedagogy.”

Anthony C. Wood, historian and author of “Preserving New York”

“The proposed expansion to the Upper East Side Historic District to include Lexington Avenue and environs. One key building, the Kean Building, has been lost because of the unresponsiveness of the Landmarks Preservation Commission, but the essence of the proposed expansion to the district still remains intact. Lexington Avenue is ‘Main Street’ for residents of the Upper East Side, and it still retains … a distinctive sense of place.”

Buy your very own Charlie Brown Christmas tree!

Wednesday December 17, 2008 9:38 AM By Rolando Pujol

This put us right into the holiday spirit.

An Upper West Side Christmas tree stand is selling what are brilliantly billed as "Charlie Brown Christmas trees." They're cute and ever so forlorn, so we found it difficult to resist "adopting" one, especially when the price is a mere buck.

The salesman told us people are scooping them up as a seasonal talking pieces for their desks. The tree stand is on Broadway between West 97th and 98th streets.

"A Charlie Brown Christmas," by the way aired last night. But fear not, you can watch it on YouTube.

-- Rolando Pujol

Throwback Thursday: Christmas in New York, 1985

Thursday December 4, 2008 12:29 PM By Rolando Pujol

Video via TapThat2012 on YouTube

We'll be dedicating Throwback Thursday to old-school holidays in the city for the rest of the month. First up, we offer you a glimpse of Channel 5 in 1985, during its last Christmas as "WNEW-TV," before it was purchased by Rupert Murdoch and his fledgling Fox Network, and the station's "Foxification" began.

This clips contains a great collection of vintage NYC staples. They include ads for 1010 WINS, New York Telephone (a Nynex Company), Lafayette Circuit City, and a movie ad for "Silk Stockings" voiced by longtime Channel 5 announcer Ed Ladd.

-- Roland Pujol

Fire up the TV: 'The Yule Log' is coming back to PIX

Wednesday December 3, 2008 9:57 AM By Rolando Pujol

See a slide-show history of the Yule Log HERE.

Christmas in New York isn't quite complete without "The Yule Log," and WPIX will not disappoint this Christmas morning. "The Yule Log" will run from 9 a.m.-1 p.m on December 25, and at 1 p.m., the Laurel and Hardy classic "March of the Wooden Soldiers" will be back as well.

Ahh, that's Christmas morning as it should be.

But from 1990 to 2000, New York did without the tradition, which had begun in 1966. But WPIX saw the light of the log in 2001, bringing back the special after fan Joe Malzone lead an online effort to light the embers anew. Its return was heartily embraced by a city still reeling from 9/11, and it's been back every year since.

This year's Yule Log comes as PIX celebrates its 60th anniversary, and shortly after the successful return of another of its longtime traditions, "Chiller Theatre." And in keeping with the station's respect for its history -- and viewers love for the old Channel 11 -- the station has even revamped its identity, unveiling a tweaked version of its classic "Circle 11" logo, left, while re-emphasizing the classic "PIX" brand. (Who doesn't remember the on-air PIX video game?)

See the news release after the jump, which includes PIX's holiday schedule. You'll get a chance to see "The Odd Couple" Christmas show (and its rendition of a "A Christmas Carol") among other New York holiday favorites.

As an Urbanite plus, check out a Yule Log tradition that ran for many years along with the fire: station editorialist Richard N. Hughes' inspirational Christmas message. He is of the "what's your opinion, we'd like to know" fame. Read it HERE and see it HERE.

-- Rolando PujolNEW YORK, December 3, 2008 - It wouldn't be a holiday in New York without The WPIX Yule Log! The Yule Log, the famous film loop of a burning log in a hearth, has mesmerized viewers since it debuted on PIX in 1966. To celebrate the Log's 42nd anniversary, PIX 11 will air The Yule Log from 9am-1pm on December 25th, expanding the coverage to 4-hours. At 1pm, immediately following The Yule Log, PIX will air the beloved holiday classic, March of the Wooden Soldiers.

In recent years, The Yule Log has been digitally re-mastered and fully restored. In 2001, while searching the company's archives, the original 35mm Yule Log film was found where it was misfiled in a "Honeymooners" film can titled "A Dog's Life." At that time, the original film was color corrected and cleaned of scratches. In 2003, the Log was up-converted to High Definition (PIX now airs a simultaneous HDTV Yule Log on WPIX-DT) and in 2005 PIX made The Yule Log available to viewers as a downloadable podcast.

In 2006 to celebrate the Log's 60th anniversary, Lawrence "Chip" Arcuri and Joe Malzone, the creator of theyulelog.com, restored the audio of The Yule Log for PIX, a process that required the digital remastering of a number of songs to be pulled from their original vinyl records, since many of the songs in The Yule Log have never been released on CD (In fact, out of 70 selections on the program, 34 are currently out-of-print, and of that 34, 12 have never been in print on CD!)

With the Log now digitally re-mastered and fully restored, The Yule Log continues to serve as a holiday card to PIX viewers.

The Yule Log can be seen on PIX and PIX-DT on Thursday, December 25th from 9 am-1pm ET (with closed captioning available.) The Log will be offered as wallpaper, a downloadable podcast, and via flash video at www.wpix.com where PIX will host a Yule Log comment board.

PIX 11 HOLIDAY EPISODES AND SPECIALS

(Times listed as broadcast day)

12/5 8pm Grandma Got Run Over By A Reindeer (1hr) - CW Special

9pm The Story of Santa Claus (1hr) - CW Special

12/6 1pm Movie: Jack Frost (1998)

Michael Keaton, Kelly Preston, Joseph Cross, Mark Addy, Andrew Lawrence

The father of a young boy passes away on Christmas, and returns the following winter as a snowman and tries to be the parent he had never taken the time to be.

3pm Movie: I'll Be Home for Christmas (1998)

Jonathan Taylor Thomas, Jessica Biel, Adam LaVorgna, Gary Cole, Eve Gordon

A self-centered California college student, glued to a Santa suit by his rival, flies, crawls, races, bullies, and even sleighs his way to New York to cash in on a vintage Porsche promised by his father.

12/12 8pm Everybody Hates Chris - CW Network "Everybody Hates New Year's Eve"

12/13 7pm WPIX Special: RexCorp Plaza Tree Lighting (1/2hr)

Hosted by Jim Watkins and Jill Nicolini of PIX News, this holiday special features some of Long Island's finest talent such as Ashanti and Push Play, as well as champion and up-and-coming skating stars in the lighting of Long Island's favorite Christmas tree.

12/14 1pm Movie Encore: Jack Frost (1998)

3pm Movie Encore: I'll Be Home for Christmas

12/16 (Early Wednesday AM)

3am South Park - "Merry Christmas Charlie Manson"

12/19 (Early Saturday AM)

3am South Park - "Christmas in Canada"

12/21 3pm Movie: Christmas at Water's Edge (2004)

Keshia Knight Pulliam, Pooch Hall, Earl Billings, Ray J, Richard Lawson, Tom Bosley

A wealthy college student discovers the Christmas spirit when she helps organize a holiday concert for a youth center, even though she must team with a cantankerous hip hop cabbie, whom she has no idea is really an angel in training.

12/22 (Early Tuesday AM)

1:30am Frasier - "Frasier Grinch"

2:30am The Jeffersons - "The Christmas Wedding"

3am South Park - "Mr. Hankey The Christmas Poo"

12/23 11:30p Friends - "Rachel Quits" (Christmas)

(Early Wednesday AM)

1:30am Frasier - "Perspectives on Christmas"

2:30am The Jeffersons - "984 W. 124th Street, Apt. 5C"

12/24 11:30p Friends - "The One with the Routine" (New Year's)

(Early Thursday AM)

12am Midnight Mass from St. Patrick's Cathedral (LIVE, 1 ½ hrs)

Catholic Christmas Mass from Saint Patrick's Cathedral in New York.

1:30am Frasier - "Merry Christmas, Mrs. Moskowitz

2:30am The Jeffersons - "George Finds a Father"

3am South Park - "A Very Crappy Christmas"

12/25 9am WPIX Special: The Yule Log (4hrs)

The Yule Log, a WPIX Christmas tradition, is a holiday card to our viewers of a log blazing in a fireplace accompanied by classic Christmas music.

1pm Movie March of the Wooden Soldiers (2hrs)

7:30pm Family Guy - A Very Special Family Guy Freakin' Christmas

11:30pm Friends - "The One with Christmas in Tulsa"

(Early Friday AM)

12:30am According to Jim - "The Christmas Party"

1:30am Frasier - "The Fight Before Christmas"

2am Odd Couple - "Scrooge Gets an Oscar"

2:30am The Jeffersons - "All I Want for Christmas"

12/26 6:30pm Friends - "The One Where Ross Got High" (Thksgvg)

(Early Saturday AM)

1:30am Frasier - "Mary Christmas"

2:30am The Jeffersons - "Father Christmas"

12/31 12am The Honeymooner's New Year's Marathon

16 hours, 32 episodes of classic Honeymooners episodes

From the archives: Have a monstrous Thanksgiving

Friday November 28, 2008 8:34 AM By Rolando Pujol

We blogged this over at amNY's Digital Popcorn film blog last year, but thought we'd share it with Urbanite readers:

TV Guide ad via www.dvddrive-in.com

To this day, I associate Thanksgiving with Channel 9's Holiday Movie Festival. You could forget football, or reminiscing with the family around the dinner table. The real action was in front of the tube as WOR trotted out monster classics from its RKO library. On Turkey Days from 1976 to 1985, New Yorkers were treated to such classics as King Kong, Mighty Joe Young and a host of Godzilla movies.Now, I am not a big monster movie fan, but what appreciation I have for these films comes from repeated exposure by local TV stations back before they spiffed up their schedules, affiliated with networks, and turned their backs on classic reruns, cartoons and creaky movies. Now, you have to go to niche cable channels or turn to DVDs to see films that were once part of a regular TV diet. It's too bad these changes mean many kids today will not be exposed to nontraditional programming fare, nor will they form precious "holiday film festival" memories such as the ones New Yorkers over 30 share.

Indeed, like many longtime New York television traditions, the Thanksgiving film festival faded in the mid 80s as viewing habits changed with the advent of the VCR and cable. Soon, other movie traditions like Drive In Movie on Channel 5 -- a tremendous showcase for rare Kung Fu and horror films -- were also gone. For a superb overview of these TV traditions, visit www.dvddrive-in.com. Here's their write-up on the Holiday Film Festival, along with a tribute to Drive In Movie, Chiller Theater from Channel 11, and Creature Features from Channel 5.

But we digress. Returning to the Holiday Movie Festival, a YouTube contributor who offers rare-as-a-hen's-tooth videos from old New York television has compiled an almost 10-minute-long sequence of movie clips, bumpers and even old commercials for New York staples such as Crazy Eddie that will give you a sense of what it was like to spend Thanksgiving watching monster movies on Channel 9 in the early 1980s. Watch below, and happy Thanksgiving!

-- Rolando Pujol

A very 'Special' retro T-shirt

Friday November 28, 2008 8:10 AM By Rolando Pujol

We don't plan to do much Black Friday shopping, but our morning RSS crawl turned up a gift we must have right this second.

Thursday, we engaged in a little "Charlie Brown Thanksgiving" nostalgia, and shared our fond memories of the "CBS Special Presentation" promo that aired from the early 1970s to early 1990s. It signaled it was time for old-fashioned fun with Snoopy and the gang.

Well, the Web site Retroist reports that you can actually own a shirt modeled on the CBS special animation.

It ain't cheap, at $28, but who can resist the pitch:

You can almost hear the drums and horns break in as the family gathers around the TV for a night of holiday specials. (Think Frosty or Rudolph.)

The shirt is available from Wire and Twine. And watch the intro here.

-- Rolando Pujol

Back to the '80s: Thanksgiving parade's Smurfy past

Thursday November 27, 2008 9:00 AM By Rolando Pujol

If you caught the Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade this morning, you saw the debut of a Smurf balloon. But all you children of the 1980s might ask, "Really? There was never a Smurf balloon back in the day?" Well, there wasn't, but the Smurfs were indeed a part of the parade in 1984 and 1985.

The nostalgia buffs at X-Entertainment have visual evidence. In 1984, the Smurfs got down on Gotham's streets with their mortal enemies, the Snorks, along with Fred Flintstone and Scooby Doo. Check out the madness here.

In 1985, the Smurfs were back, absent their cartoon companions.

With Smurf nostalgia riding high (and that new balloon), we may have a Smurf in the parade for years to come.

Someone call Gargamel.

-- Rolando Pujol

Photo: Screen grab of 1984 parade via X-Entertainment

amNY series, day two: Q&A with Curtis Sliwa

Wednesday November 19, 2008 7:50 PM By Rolando Pujol

Radio host Curtis Sliwa founded what became The Guardian Angels in 1979.

Just how bad were the bad old days?

It was like dawn of the dead. It was like zombies roaming around, dope fiends, drug dealers…vulturizing the city. The Bronx was burning. People were fleeing. We are nowhere near that situation. Back then you felt, particularly if you worked the graveyard shift, when the sun went down the thugs ruled everything on the ground. You felt like you were wearing pork chop pants going into a cage of Doberman pitchers.

What do you miss about that era in New York?

Absolutely nothing. Some people say, “Oh I wish we had the old Times Square.” I say if you want that, go to Camden, go to Detroit. You want some of that old time crime, sleaze and slime?

In what way, if any, do you see the city's quality of life eroding?

There are more homeless people. You have some squeegee posses out there. The subways are just a moving caravan of people trying to shake you down for money.

When the Wall Street crisis is over, how different a place will New York be?

It all depends on who’s the shot caller, who’s the mayor. If it’s a weak mayor…we’d be back to the old days in no time. You need somebody who understands public safety is do or die for the city. If you haven’t guaranteed public safety, the tourists aren’t going to come. If you have crime, they [Wall Street] abandon ship, and now they don’t need to be in the city…because the whole world is virtual now.

1978, 2008: Which year would you rather live in and why?

2008 without question. You can actually in 2008 close your eyes sometimes and not worry that your neck will be slit ear to ear. Whereas in 1978…arson...gang violence…you couldn’t close your eyes. At anytime people could come out of the woodwork. You don’t have that feeling now. It’s more relaxed.

-- Marlene Naanes

Throwback Thursday: Circuit City's problems inspire memories of Crazy Eddie

Thursday November 13, 2008 7:27 PM By Rolando Pujol

You never know what joys await in the basement. Our friend still has a Crazy Eddie bag in hers, untouched for at least 20 years.

The economic crisis does not seem content to leave any business unscathed. This week, it was Circuit City's turn to shudder as the electronics chain took cover under Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in a last ditch effort to stay in business. And Best Buy is now warning about disappointing holiday sales.

Well, all this disappointing talk has us hankering for a simpler time, to the days when electronics chains meant one thing in New York City -- Crazy Eddie. There were others, of course: Brick Church, Savemart, (with Don Adams as the spokesman, talking into a shoe phone, Agent 86 style!), the unbeatable and ultimately defeated Wiz and Trader Horn for starters.

But nothing quite gets the nostalgia engines going better than a nice old Crazy Eddie commercial. We've always thought it would be fantastic to bring this chain back -- even one brick-and-mortar location, we theorize, would be teeming with nostalgic New Yorkers looking to get in on pitchman Jerry Carrol's "insane" deals. (And no, he was NOT the real Crazy Eddie. The story's here.) While you try put that "crazy" business plan in action, lose yourself in this assemblage of Crazy Eddie ads that await you after the jump. You'd be insane not to revisit these chestnuts.

-- Rolando Pujol

Want even more? There's more here.

It's hard out there for a thug: NYPD retires famed firing range target

Wednesday November 12, 2008 3:43 PM By Rolando Pujol

BY ROCCO PARASCANDOLA

Special to amNewYork

The Thug just got whacked.

The NYPD has said goodbye to the menacing paper target that officers have fired at since the 1960s and replaced him with two new targets, one who looks like Mr. Clean and another resembling a Martian or a mummy.

Officially, the target is known as Silhouette SP-83A but in police circles, it’s known as “The Thug” or “The Worrell,” after former firing range instructor Sgt. Fred Worrell. While some believe The Thug looks like Worrell, others argue he was modeled after actor Ernest Borgnine or even boxer Rocky Graziano.

Regardless, the target has a shaded area covering the head and torso, making it difficult for instructors to see from a distance the shot patterns, according to NYPD Deputy Commissioner Paul Browne.

The new targets are shaded differently and are easier to determine how a shooter scored.

Rocco Parascandola is a Newsday staff writer.

Throwback Thursday: Please stand by, "The Honeymooners" will be right back

Thursday November 6, 2008 10:21 AM By Rolando Pujol

A screen shot from an airing of "The Honeymooners" in 1982. Moments later, the film developed a technical glitch and the "11 Alive" logo was displayed. (Via tapthat2012 on YouTube)

By Rolando Pujol

With broadcast TV just a few months away from going all digital, it's difficult to think of a time when it was absolutely analog. Back when TV stations like WPIX presented many of their programs on 16 millimeter films -- projected through devices called telecines -- you could never be sure the film chain would make it to the closing credits without an embarrassing snafu.

Here, courtesy of the superb archivist of New York television, tapthat2012, is a prime example of one of these malfunctions, shown below. During a 1982 showing of "The Honeymooners," the screen suddenly flashes white and then goes grey, and with an accompanying "thunk" sound, an "11 Alive" slide is plastered on the screen. The announcer, Ralph Lowenstein, informs viewers that there is a problem with "the picture portion" of the program, and asks us to hang on. Elevator music entertains us in the meantime. But just when we think we're trapped in "Please Stand By" hell, we hear the show's audio whirring back on -- even while the announcer is still speaking and the music is still playing. Finally, we're back to show.

TV is so boring today.

The Sun has set, but its memory shines on sidewalks

Tuesday November 4, 2008 8:27 AM By Rolando Pujol

An honor box for The Sun at Lexington Avenue and East 22nd Street is among many still found on city sidewalks. (Jefferson Siegel)

By Jefferson Siegel

There are ghosts on the streets of New York that are not leftovers from Halloween.

More than a month after the New York Sun ceased publication, their news boxes remain on many city streets, like this one on Lexington Avenue at East 22nd Street.

Once upon a time locals consumed various dailies, most now defunct, including the Herald Tribune, the Journal American, the Mirror and the World Telegram. Many would publish several editions in the course of a single day.

The Daily News used to publish a "bulldog" edition that hit the streets around 7 every evening. The Post published several editions a day, the last a stock market final with 4 p.m. closing prices. Before the Internet, an early edition of tomorrow's Times could be found on newsstands around 10 p.m. each night.

The demise of The Sun leaves newspaper junkies with a little more time on their hands and a little less ink on their fingers.

MORE: The Sun's Web site is still extant, where it's eerily still Sept. 30, its final day of publication.

Turning back the hands of time

Sunday November 2, 2008 10:15 AM By Rolando Pujol

This clock sits outside a former branch of Bank Leumi on the Lower East Side. (Jefferson Siegel)

By Jefferson Siegel

With the change back to Eastern Standard Time today, it's an appropriate time to look at one of the many artistic and historically significant clocks that can still be found around town. This clock is situated over the doorway of 85 Delancey St. near Orchard Street on the Lower East Side.

According to the blog, It's About Time, this used to be a branch of Bank Leumi. The blog describes the clock as, "Deco meets Classical meets Roman. Meets Broken."

In a 2007 letter to the NYC Dept. of City Planning that identified significant historical sites on the LES, the 1936 building is further identified as "Four-story, Neo-Renaissance cast-stone bank and commercial building with bronze door and clock for Public National Bank and Trust Company.

New Kids on the Block: Still got it? Or kinda gross

Tuesday October 28, 2008 12:42 PM By Jamshid Mousavinezhad

(L-R) Danny Wood, Donnie Whalberg, Joey McIntyre, Jordan Knight and Jonathan Knight of New Kids On The Block at Madison Square Garden on October 27, 2008 in New York City. (Getty Images)

By Lauren Johnston

In the realm of boy bands, it has to be said, the New Kids on the Block are geezers, and a reunion tour could easily equal a pathetic disaster. Donnie Wahlberg and Jon Knight are both pushing 40, and it’s been nearly 20 years since the group’s concert heyday.

But apparently, no one told the fans – still swooning after all these years. Or lead crooner Jordan Knight, whose wailing falsetto at last night’s MSG show was circa 1987. I saw New Kids on the Block in concert for the first time at the York County Fair (read, rural Pennsylvania) when I was 10. I had the crazed strain of NKOTB fever, like every other girl I knew. My parents bought my sister and me concert t-shirts, which we put on immediately and decorated with pancake-sized fan buttons.

Then we continued the debate we’d raged over for weeks: Who was cutest? “Duh, Joey!” (her) “No WAY! Jordan.” (me)

We were so psyched to hear “The Right Stuff” live that we barely noticed our seats were in the next-to-last-row. When the lights blinked out, the thousands of pre-teen girls in the crowd launched into a shrill, unified scream that lasted until the final number, and we barely heard a word as the toothpick-sized band members bounced in and out of choreographed poses on the distant stage.

And that was pretty much my experience last night at the New Kids reunion tour show – 20 years later – again with my sister, though minus the shirts. And we had a new debate: “It might be lame and sad.” (me) “No WAY! It’ll be awesome!” (her)

The crowd sided with her. (see video below):

When the lights blinked out, tens of thousands of grown women broke into deafening screams that lasted until the encore numbers, “Step-by-Step” and “Hangin’ Tough.” And we barely heard the boys (nee men) singing the words to “I’ll be Loving You Forever,” and “Please Don’t Go Girl” (a few octaves lower) over the chorus bursting from the bleacher seats.

When the Kids reprised their old hits, it was like revisiting a sweet time when nothing mattered more than jelly bracelets and pink boomboxes.

But when they sang songs from their new album, “The Block,” the Beantown boys were more like a gang of pervy sleazebags than ex-teen idols – fist-pumping in unison as they shouted out leering lyrics like “I’mma give you some grown man,” delivered along with a hip-thrust and if that wasn’t obvious enough – finger-pointing toward their crotches.

So NKOTB, I was happy to see you. You didn’t suck. It was good trip down memory lane, and yes, I did shoot out of my seat involuntarily to sing every word to “Step-By-Step.” But, the appeal is more for the little girl left inside your grown-up fans. And the idea of some “grown man” is just kinda gross.

Throwback Thursday: Chiller Theatre is back!

Thursday October 23, 2008 10:48 AM By Rolando Pujol

Click here to be terrified by the Six-Fingered Hand!

By Rolando Pujol

WPIX-TV Channel 11 may be home to the CW network and "Gossip Girl," but it has not lost sight of its roots as an independent station born in television's golden days. We love that a major market station devoted a full day of programming earlier this year to celebrating its 60th anniversary, trotting out old favorites like "Abbott and Costello" and "The Little Rascals." We love that they've promoting DVDs of "The Magic Garden" on their Web site. We love that they've brought back "The Yule Log" on Christmas Day, and that late at night, we can still catch up with the adventures of Oscar and Felix and George and Weezie.

But now, PIX has really done fans of classic TV proud. This Saturday, they will bring back for a single night one of the greatest horror movie shows in local TV history, "Chiller Theatre." And the great Zacherle, the "Cool Ghoul" who hosted Chiller Theatre in the 1960s, will be back!

Chiller has not been seen on PIX since the early 1980s, and its original run spanned 1961 to 1978. For one night, New Yorkers will be able to relive how generations of Americans came to know about horror movies, both the classic and the campy. In the era of rabbit-eared TVs, local TV hosts would dress up as monsters and introduce horror movies, provide schtick during commercial breaks, and otherwise keep audiences terrified (well, certainly amused).

That era pretty much faded by the 1980s, but this Saturday at 8 p.m., with Zach coming back to host "Tarantula," you'll be transported to another time. And, in case you're wondering, Chiller's 1970s "Six-Fingered Hand" will emerge from the swamp once more. This will be the best Halloween in years.

Read more at PIX's Web site. And thanks again, 11 Alive!

The humpbacks of the Upper East Side

Tuesday October 14, 2008 9:51 AM By Rolando Pujol

On the ever-so-genteel southwest corner of East 63rd Street and Park Avenue stands a nice tribute to the city's once ubiquitous "humpback" street signs. This style, aside from the obvious aesthetic considerations, is much more useful, too, requiring only one sign to give you the intersecting streets. Below, see how good it looks on a Bishop's Crook. Forgotten NY explains the humpback is coming back into vogue, here and there, but observes finding an authentic one in the wild is quite the challenge.

We've never stumbled onto one ourselves, but strangely, found a bunch of retired ones redeployed in South of the Border, the amusing tourist "stop" ("trap" is too harsh a word, since we rather enjoy the authentic mid-century vibe of the place) on I-95 on the border of the Carolinas. I'll share photos of these signs down the road.

-- Rolando Pujol

Old and new neon meet in the East Village

Tuesday October 7, 2008 12:35 PM By Rolando Pujol

An out-of-towner walking down Second Avenue might be confused by this strange juxtaposition outside this East Village watering hole. The Chow Mein sign belongs to a longtime Chinese restaurant, Jade Mountain, that occupied the space until a few years ago. And the new sign, for Shoolbred's, was installed by the successor eatery.

We love the clash of the old and new signs here. And the Shoolbred sign, while new, looks as though it's been there for 50 years. An instant classic.

-- Rolando Pujol

Ghost of Morris Brothers haunts Upper West Side

Sunday September 14, 2008 4:17 PM By Rolando Pujol

This is the only remaining visible sign for the old Morris Brothers department store. (Photo by Rolando Pujol)

Morris Brothers, the Upper West Side department store that clad neighborhood kids in summer-camp gear for decades, is still empty 13 months after it was shut down. All that's left of the shop is this one sign, visible on West 84th Street. The others have been covered up, and signs promote the retail space (between 1,300 and 5,600 square feet available). The spot did briefly serve as a Halloween accessories store last year.

This reminds us of a New York retail development that has driven neighborhood residents batty in recent years. Longtime shops that are vital to the neighborhood are forced out by higher rents. The landlord then waits to find the perfect tenant, or simply one that is willing to pay the new, astronomical lease. If no takers come along, the space sits empty, sometimes for years. In the meantime, the old business could have hung on a little -- or a lot -- longer, and the landlord could have kept making some money on the space.

We could fill a blog post every day on this dispiriting and incredibly frustrating phenomenon.

-- Rolando Pujol

Mad Men and the City: The New Girl

Monday August 25, 2008 7:13 AM By Rolando Pujol

Newly engaged Joan Holloway helps out Don's latest secretery -- The New Girl" of the episode's name -- on her first day on the job. The boys are soon all over her. (Via AMC).

Welcome to our second edition of Mad Men and the City, Urbanite's weekly look at AMC's "Mad Men" as seen through the prism of New York and American history and culture. As always, spoilers lurk below, so proceed with care. And please share your observations in the comments:

* Lenox Hill -- As Pete Campbell and his wife, Trudy, discuss with a doctor their inability to have a child, Trudy enthusiastically mentions the wonders of Lenox Hill Hospital. Her theory that Pete is the reason there are no little ones running around their posh Upper East Side apartment is deflated later in the episode, when a test finds his sperm to be quite motile. (Of course, the viewer -- and Peggy -- know this already!) As you might imagine, their fragile relationship takes a blow, and Pete unsurprisingly is remarkably insensitive to Trudy's pain. As he lashes out at her, she's the one running around saying I'm sorry. (Sorry Pete, taking her out to dinner won't quite make things right.) Our take: Smart, casually inserted mention of Lenox Hill, a New York institution which celebrated its 150th anniversary last year.

* Sardi's -- Bobbie Barrett telephones Don Draper from Theater District institution Sardi's, and asks him to come over and celebrate. The pilot for "Grin and Barrett," which she pitched in last week's episode, has been sold. As usual, Bobbie gets what Bobbie wants, and Don is soon at Sardi's, where she orders him an Old Fashioned and suggests a trip out to her place on Long Island. Don, of course, obliges. Our take: Sardi's is one of our favorite places in the city, largely for its history and its ties to a vanishing world, which "Mad Men" is very much a part of. While nothing would replace actually shooting at Sardi's, the scene is well handled. The camera captures just enough of the Sardi's-style celebrity caricatures that paper the restaurant's walls to establish that we are indeed at Sardi's. And that's enough for us.Whenever we go to Sardi's before a Broadway show, we amuse ourselves with a game of decipher the celebrity caricature (or more often than not, figure out who this once-famous person was.) The scene there was nicely handled.* Grey -- Could the Rachel Mencken story line still have some legs? It appears so. While at Sardi's, Don has an incredibly awkward run-in with his old flame, who was so damaged by their affair's end that she had to leave the country to recover. Flash forward two years, and he finds out the hard way that she's no longer Ms. Mencken, she's MRS. Katz, and Mr. Katz is their to underline the point. We find out that the Mencken Department Store account is now being handled by Grey when Don drops this gem: "How are things at Grey? Are they still taking credit for everything we did?" Zing! Our take: Effortless name drop of Grey Advertising, now called the Grey Group, which has a commanding presence at 777 Third Ave, a building where Sterling and Cooper would feel right at home. By the early 1960s, Grey was heavily involved in work for big-fish advertisers such as Proctor and Gamble, but we'll assume it was conceivable the company would take an interest in reviving a tired Fifth Avenue department store.

* Stony Brook -- So the Barretts have a place in that Long Island community, and that's where Don and Bobbie are headed when he gets into a boozy wreck that leaves him in the drunk tank, needing $150 to avoid a night in the slammer. He calls Peggy Olson, who becomes this episode's Ms. Fix It: She helps him make bail, takes in the injured Bobbie in her cramped Brooklyn apartment, and all around shows a fierce loyalty to Don. Of course, we already know that Don has helped propel her career. But now we learn much more about their relationship during a crucial flashback sequence to a visit he pays her at St. Mary's, where she is hospitalized after giving birth. He tells her: "Get out of here and move forward. This never happened. It will shock you how much this never happened." That's Don's credo, and in the same episode, Bobbie shares her credo with Peggy: Use your feminine wiles and treat a man like an equal. Powerful stuff. But back to Stony Brook, we like this reference for many reasons. Chief among them: it reminds us of one our favorite movies, "North by Northwest," a film whose DNA "Mad Men" taps. That movie also features a boozy drive on the Island's North Shore, with Cary Grant at the wheel. There's also a stop at a Long Island police station, and the need to call New York for help. Here, Peggy Olson replaces Roger Thornhill's "mother," played brilliantly by Jessie Royce Landis. Our take: No quibbles here: The Stony Brook reference helped give life to an interesting plot twist.

* Marilyn, John, and breathy birthday wishes at Madison Square Garden -- We know it's now May 1962, because we hear a casual reference to Saturday's big event: Marilyn Monroe will be at President John F. Kennedy's fund-raising birthday bash at Madison Square Garden. The matter comes up in conversation between Bobbie and Peggy. "Most people would love to have her problems," Peggy says. They wouldn't feel that way three months later, when Marilyn died. Our take: Just a great line; these little carefully selected treats are among the reasons we love this show so much. Of course, we're still talking about the show Marilyn put on for JFK that night at MSG, which back in those days was still at 50th Street and Eighth Avenue.

* Idlewild -- JFK keeps coming up in this episode. Well, quite indirectly here, but Idlewild will eventually be renamed John F. Kennedy International Airport in honor of the slain president. Kennedy's death is still a year and a half away at this point in the series. The airport's name comes up when discussing where Don might be able to rent a car after he wrecks his own out on Long Island. Our take: It's one of those nuggets that New Yorkers with a taste for history love to share: JFK was once called Idlewild Airport, the name of a golf course where the airfield was built in the 1940s. Its name is immortalized in the theme song to "Car 54, Where Are You?", which is from the "Mad Men" era. (Khrushchev's due at Idlewild!) Our take: Idlewild is a word that represents a clear and emotional demarcation in the nation's life, and the casual use of it here is powerful and noticeable.

* St. Mary's -- Peggy is hospitalized here when she gives birth. The only St. Mary's we know of in Brooklyn closed in 2005. It was the last Catholic hospital in that borough, which would make it a logical place for Peggy to be a patient. Our take: The real St. Mary's was in Bed-Stuy. Not sure if this would have the closest or most logical hospital for Peggy to attend. But we're simply not sure if our quibble here holds water.

Odds and Ends

* Utz -- Utz potato chips make a return appearance when a grateful Jimmy Barrett makes a personal visit to thank Don for his role in talking Utz into sponsoring his show. Oh, little does Jimmy know the back story that involves Bobbie and Don, but we can only imagine what will happen if (or when) he finds out.

* Western Electric 500 phone -- Last week we knocked the show for using a make of phone that would not have been available for customers in Ossining, the Drapers' hometown. Peggy's home phone, a yellow 500 rotary set, is spot on. The cords are hardwired, and the one going to the wall is a matching color. And by the way, nice going Peggy on the apartment! The roommate is gone and she has her own pad, a hard-fought milestone for the character.

* Fuzzy TV images -- Back in the day, crystal clear reception in the big city was no guarantee, and Peggy's TV is testament to that. (Fuzzy TV reception was amply used in the episode when the Sterling and Cooper staff awaits the televised results of the Nixon-Kennedy election, back in season one.)

-- Rolando Pujol

More:

-Click for Mad Men photos from Season 2

-Click for photos of 'The Women of Mad Men'

-Click for a look at the style of Mad Men

Must-read "Mad Men" blogs:

Basket of Kisses

Star Ledger blog

Television Without Pity forum

AMC's blog

Scenes from the episode:

Zipper music!

A drive to Long Island

World Trade Center and Virgin of Guadalupe murals draw the curious on City Island

Wednesday August 20, 2008 10:49 AM By Rolando Pujol

Murals in the parking lot of the Neptune Inn on City Island include one of the World Trade Center, which is peeling away, and another for the Virgin of Guadalupe, which is intact. (Photos by Rolando Pujol)

If there's one thing that City Islanders enjoy in great numbers, it's seafood places. The Neptune Inn, on the island's southern tip, has been closed for years because of a fire, but still draws the curious because of the murals in its parking lot.

Two murals in particular attract attention. One is in shabby condition, and shows the World Trade Center. A local restaurant worker who noticed us snapping photos of the murals last weekend told us that the paint began to flick away shortly after 9/11, in a coincidence that some felt poignant, if a touch bizarre. But what raises even more eyebrows is the mural right next to it, which shows the Virgin of Guadalupe. That mural is in excellent shape, with no serious signs of damage.

This juxtaposition, this person said, has inevitably led people to impute some greater meaning to the murals, and, he says, even pay their respects at the murals. (A third mural, right next to the one of the WTC, has some paint damage but not as much.)

We later asked around and found no other such reports, but we can say for sure that the murals are striking. Another sight-seer also noticed the murals and was snapping away while we were there. Other Web sites have found the Neptune Inn's murals worthy of mention.

Soon, these conversation pieces may be a memory.

The restaurant -- its windows smashed open and trash and furniture everywhere -- is poised for demolition, we were told. And that means those murals that attract so much attention may well disappear along with the old Neptune Inn.

The murals are 35 City Island Ave., across from the popular Sammy's and Lobster Box restaurants. And keep an eye on Urbanite for more dispatches from our recent visit to City Island.

-- Rolando Pujol

A Bronx building and its unknown tales

Tuesday August 19, 2008 11:42 AM By Rolando Pujol

Do you know the story of this Bronx building? Urbanite wants to know. (Photos by Jefferson Siegel)

In the Bronx, at 436 Westchester Ave. near Bergen Avenue., just blocks from the area known as The Hub, sits this small two-story building. In faded letters one can read "N Y Post Office Station R"

The ground floor appears to be empty; the second floor is occupied by "John's Gym" where boxing is offered for women. Several women wearing boxing gloves were observed running around an empty lot across the street one day, obviously part of their training.

Does anyone know the history of this building? Or, to be more specific, about its post office days?

-- Jefferson Siegel

Dispatch from the 1970s: Park Avenue fender bender, no doubt accompanied by wa wa pedal

Monday August 11, 2008 11:27 AM By Rolando Pujol

Quick, somebody call Kojack! (Photo by Jefferson Siegel)

Saturday's car-free Summer Streets was a rare opportunity to bike, run and stroll on Park Avenue South. This image from the mid-1970s, taken on 25th Street and Park Avenue South, stands in stark contrast, a time when cars were larger, gas and taxis were much cheaper but fender benders were still the norm.

-- Jefferson Siegel

Gotham's Gems: Urbanite visits New Yorker Hotel

Thursday August 7, 2008 12:36 PM By Rolando Pujol

Images from the collection of Joe Kinney. Check out our photo galleries HERE , HERE, and HERE and check out Lauren Johnston's great video tour of the hotel with Joe Kinney.

The maze of tunnels under New York includes one you probably never heard of. It lies 30 feet below the intersection of West 34th Street and Eighth Avenue and links the New Yorker Hotel to Penn Station.

This tunnel is no utilitarian slouch: It's sheathed in sumptuous Art Deco tile and long-empty glass sign displays that promoted Duke Ellington shows to travelers being whisked through the passage by bellhops. You'd say, "Take me to the New Yorker and you wouldn’t have to go outside,” Joe Kinney, the hotel's engineer and historian, said during a recent tour of the hotel.

Indeed, the New Yorker's historic spirit is filling all of its corridors again, as a room-by-room renovation draws toward completion, powered by the strong Art Deco genes that gave it life almost 80 years ago. But for many of those years, the hotel had lost touch with its history. It closed in 1972 and was purchased by the Unification Church. In 1994, it reopened under its original name, but only now is it truly reclaiming its lost history and pride of place among the city's hotels.

It's easy to see how Kinney, 57, who joined the staff in 1996, became captivated by its history, and how he was able to sell senior management on the idea that the hotel's future lay in its past. The striking pyramidical, set-backed tower was financed and built before the Wall Street crash of 1929, and opened into a sobered-up world on Jan. 2, 1930, with the Great Depression already under way.

The 43-story hotel boasted many extremes when it opened: It was the biggest, the tallest, the one with the largest switchboard, the largest kitchen, the largest private power plant. Today, its massive LED sign is a skyline fixture and is possibly the largest of its kind anywhere.

You hear of the ice follies at the Terrace Room, of visits by actor Mickey Rooney and band leader Benny Goodman, and of Nikola Tesla, the electrical genius whose obsession with numbers and his love for pigeons still draw the curious to the hotel, where he spent his final years.

The New Yorker Hotel's historically minded renovation comes at a time when the future of its former swing-era arch enemy, the Hotel Pennsylvania, has been in question, and during a time when the wrecking ball has been tearing down old New York with abandon.

The hotel’s rebirth is due in no small part to Kinney's curiosity and cheer-leading for the hotel's history.

“I feel very happy that I was able to push the Art Deconess of the hotel and that the architects took that into consideration," Kinney said, speaking of the work of the firm Stonehill & Taylor. "They did a great job.”

A quest to save history

Like the Empire State Building, its considerably more famous Art Deco cousin down 34th Street, the New Yorker was born of the high hopes of the 1920s and confronted with the harsh realities of the 1930s.

"The hotel really, really struggled. It never really got over it," Kinney said, but the New Yorker weathered the Depression and World War II years with style. A who's who of celebrities, big bands and high-living swells coursed through its lobby during the 1930s and 1940s, a story Kinney is piecing back together every day through the massive memorabilia collection he continues to build. He has rescued long-lost menus, copies of the hotel's in-house magazine, Caravan, and countless other ephemera that tell the story of one of New York's iconic hotels.

Many of his finds are on eBay, but every so often, a relative of a former employee might stop by with a stunning discovery, or a story that would have otherwise been lost to history. Just the other day, a 92-year-old former bellhop stopped by and, beaming with pride, recalled that he was an employee of the month in 1939. "They’ll give you stuff, if they think it’s going to be put to its best and highest use," Kinney said.

And his passion for hotel history helps tells the story of mid-century New York, and more broadly, American culture.

It's difficult, for instance, to think about Madison Avenue's gift at promoting smoking without considering Johnny Roventini.

The pint-sized pitchman would exclaim "call for Philip Morris" on television for years. Yet he began his career by hailing visitors in the New Yorker's lobby. A Philip Morris executive took a shine to Roventini, and the rest is advertising history.

Tesla, the eccentric inventor of AC current, called room 3327 home. The numbers held a certain magic for him, and it is here that he allegedly kept company with a beloved pigeon, and died after a 10-year stay. (The feds swooped in to clean out his room, just in case the inventor had come up with some plans that could fall into enemy hands. This was January 1943, after all.)

A hotel's secrets

The underground tunnel is certainly a highlight of any tour. Now used for storage, the tunnel poses too many security risks to reopen. And then there's a far more quotidian reason to keep it shut. "Now luggage has wheels on it, they can drag it down Eighth Avenue and walk in our front door,” Kinney said.

Another surprise awaits behind the massive brass door on Eighth Avenue. The door once lead to a branch of Manufacturers Trust bank. The door connotes wealth and security, a comforting or possibly alienating symbol for New Yorkers scraping by during the Depression.

The doors themselves, though, have been shuttered since the Reagan administration, and what lurks behind is a cavernous banking hall dripping with terrazzo flooring, brass railings, and Art Deco murals by the noted artist Louis Jambor.

The banking hall is now undergoing restoration, on track to become a grand ballroom. Once completed, it will return one of New York's great architectural spaces to public use.

Jambor made 26 panels in total for the hotel, with many of them covered under plaster during an insensitive renovation during the 1960s, the "Tupperware architecture," period, Kinney said. For a future renovation project, the hotel might undertake an effort to bring those panels to light. Indeed, the hotel is focused on reclaiming its history, one art mural, old brochure or knick-knack at a time. Kinney’s collection, in fact, may one day become part of an exhibit at the hotel.

“By recapturing and reconstituting the true history of the New Yorker Hotel ... we are actually adding value to this building and even meaning to our working lives," Kinney said.

-- Rolando Pujol

Throwback Thursday: Pick on your Purdue roaster

Thursday August 7, 2008 9:20 AM By Rolando Pujol

The great Frank Purdue was the face and voice of Purdue Chicken for decades, and some noted that Mr. Purdue had a certain resemblance to his feathered friends (not to mention one of our former mayors.)

Of all the classic Purdue commercials over the years, the jingle for the one we present today is mercilessly trapped in our head. You might say it's "picking" at us. Annoying? Yes. Effective? Of course, we're still talking about it. This ad ran from the late 1980s to the early 1990s.

-- Rolando Pujol

Via myversionofit on YouTube

Ma Bell is still ringing for you -- on sidewalks

Sunday August 3, 2008 10:55 AM By Rolando Pujol

Photo by Jefferson Siegel

Jefferson Siegel sends along this photo of one of New York's hardiest historical survivors: telephone company manhole covers. They offer glimpses into phone-company history. Above, enjoy the pre-1969 Bell logo, as found in Cadman Plaza West in Brooklyn. Designer Saul Bass cleaned up that logo with the modernist one you see at left, which Verizon still uses on pay phones, hard hats and trucks.

As Jefferson points out, it's been 23 years since the dissolution of Ma Bell -- the original AT&T and its local phone companies. Its descendants are still in our midst, with AT&T (which is really SBC with Ma Bell's name) and Verizon (nee Bell Atlantic, Nynex and New York Telephone.)

Click here for a little New York Telephone history, as told through, of all things, a rusty utility cart we ran into earlier this year.

-- Rolando Pujol

Throwback Thursday: The ShopRite Can Can Sale

Thursday July 17, 2008 10:20 AM By Rolando Pujol

A montage of scenes from the famous "disco" ShopRite Can Can commercial. Montage via X-Entertainment.com; commercial below via newlevel7 on YouTube.

It's a New York television tradition that dates back decades, and yesterday, we were reminded of it when we stumbled upon a commercial for the ShopRite Can Can Sale. Twice a year, the people at ShopRite try to rid their shelves of cans by discounting them, and bombarding the tri-state airwaves with a happy little jingle that plays off the Moulin Rouge Can-Can.

When I was a kid, the commercial played only in January, and its appearance unofficially signaled the end of the Christmas commercial season. Over the years, a July sale was added, and the commercial itself was updated. One constant has been the voice of "the ShopRite lady," who has been lending her talents to ShopRite ads since the 1970s.

For our money, though, ShopRite should bring back the version shown below, with the Can Can girls kicking up a storm to a disco beat. The version first appeared in 1980 or so.

-- Rolando Pujol

Welcome to Times Square, 1985

Tuesday July 15, 2008 11:14 AM By Rolando Pujol

Times Square in 1985, as captured on the CBS series "The Equalizer." Notice Traci Lords' misspelled name on the marquee! This scene was shot before it was revealed that she was underage. As for the "Fascination" sign, there is still a very similar sign in Coney Island.

Jeremiah over at Vanishing New York checks out Jim Jarmusch's 1980 flick "Permanent Vacation" for bits of the old St. Mark's Cinema, and finds a few interior shots that are worth the curatorial effort.

Indeed, parsing old movies and TV shows is a great way to find bits of lost New York. A recent obsession of ours has been the first season of the 1980s CBS show "The Equalizer," which was shot almost exclusively on city streets. That season is now on DVD. The shots we've included show Times Square in all its gritty neon squalor, circa the fall of 1985, and give you just a taste of the wonders the show captured on film. We suppose Rudy Giuliani was back then too busy prosecuting gangsters to care much about urban porn.

So, we ask, which movies or TV shows do you hit up for an old-school New York City fix? Our favorites include "The Taking of Pelham 1, 2, 3," "The Warriors," "Saturday Night Fever," "Three Days of the Condor" and most anything by Woody Allen or Martin Scorsese. But there are many, many others. On the TV front, old cop shows are a good source for New York street grit. The old NBC Mystery Wheel show, "McCloud," did a lot of street filming in the 1970s, and can still be seen late nights on TV 55 from Long Island.

Let us know of your old-school favorites -- the more obscure and overlooked, the better.

-- Rolando Pujol

The TKTS booth was already there, and, if you look to the top left, you'll see a sign for Howard Johnson's.

1964-65 World's Fair returns to Queens -- for a day

Thursday July 10, 2008 12:46 PM By Rolando Pujol

New York nostalgists, gather ‘round!

The Holiday Inn at LaGuardia Airport is hosting a 1964-65 New York World's Fair Show and Sale Sunday, July 20 from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m.

You'll find Fair-related film screenings, book signings, old-timey food and drink, and memorabilia for display and sale from the last New York-hosted World's Fair.

Also on hand will be BBQ Productions, the producers of the new DVD documentary, “Peace Through Understanding: The 1964/65 World’s Fair.”

The $10 admission price includes parking, but we say you can’t put a price on this kind of “remember when” bonanza.

— Megan Stride

Graffiti-fied windows at Lord & Taylor

Wednesday July 9, 2008 9:37 AM By Julie Gordon

Photos by Lia Chang/Lord & Taylor

Five members of the Bronx-based graffiti/muralist group TATS CRU were at Lord & Taylor bright and early this morning. Seems like a bit of an strange sight, doesn't it?

The artists weren't there to shop, but rather to create graffiti murals in the windows of the store.

Bio, Nicer, BG 183, How and Nosm each painted a mural live, which will be on display until July 27.

Check out 10 photos from the murals by clicking here

—Julie Gordon

The writing on the windows (of Lord & Taylor)

Tuesday July 8, 2008 2:12 PM By Julie Gordon

A TATS CRU mural in the South Bronx that pays tribute to Mad Mark and Big Pun (Flickr)

Graffiti goes mainstream yet again, as the art-form will take over Lord & Taylor's windows July 9 to 27.

Work from five graffiti artists (all members of Bronx-based graffiti/muralist group TATS CRU) will be featured: Bio, Nicer, BG 183, How and Nosm. Each of the artists will create their murals live in the windows the morning of July 9.

We recently reported on Greenpoint graffiti-art supply store Alphabeta, which caused quite a stir when it opened. Click here to read the story.

— Julie Gordon

If it's rain delay on Channel 11 ...

Sunday July 6, 2008 1:02 PM By Rolando Pujol

... then it's time for The Odd Couple! At least, that used to be the case for years when PIX had the rights to the Yankees. So imagine our delight when the Mets went to rain delay Sunday afternoon, and Felix and Oscar once again stepped up to the plate. Nice nod to Gotham television tradition, WPIX.

Now, if only Yankees games returned to PIX, then all would be right with the world.

-- Rolando Pujol

The Dish: Jahn's in Jackson Heights

Sunday June 29, 2008 2:30 PM By Rolando Pujol

You may not realize it when you stroll by, but Jahn's restaurant on 37th Avenue is something of a landmark, in a loose sense of the word. It's the last of what was once a popular chain of ice-cream shops that could be found around the city, and even down in Florida.

If you're still mourning the unexpected loss of the Jahn's in Richmond Hill, consider a visit to the Jackson Heights locale. Of course, it lacks the old-fashioned ice-cream parlor charms of the vanished Richmond Hill locale, and nothing can replace that, or its rich history, traceable to John Jahn himself, who founded the first Jahn's in the Bronx.

But the Jackson Heights spot still has plenty of old-school vibe, and the diner staples you would expect, as the photos below demonstrate.

Later this summer, Urbanite will post a photo essay on the Richmond Hall branch, from our final visit their on a muggy day in the summer of 2006. Yes, we consumed the Kitchen Sink Sundae!

-- Rolando Pujol

The awning proudly displays the Jahn's logo ...

but beneath lurks gold in the old plastic sign. Our vote? Lose the awning.

The menu is the closest you'll find to the 19th century ice-cream parlor vibe that was beautifully intact at the Richmond Hill location. More interior shots of the Jackson Heights shop are after the jump.

29 sugary treats: Cereal-box art that's surreal

Sunday June 29, 2008 10:55 AM By Rolando Pujol

Here are 29 breakfast cereals you're either too young to remember, or crave every morning of your life. Perhaps you've spent years trying to forget these nightmarishly misguided attempts at appealing to America's children.

Whatever the case, your media diet today won't be complete without checking out this most awesome photo gallery.

Throwback Thursday: The Albert Merrill School

Thursday June 26, 2008 4:25 PM By Rolando Pujol

The Albert Merrill School was one of those vocational institutes that promised computer training back in the days when Macs were just a fruit.

You can't train there anymore (thank goodness Apex and DeVry are still among us!) but on West 28th Street, you can still survey a mural for the defunct school.

Most New Yorkers will remember the school for its ubiquitous commercials (an example is below) shown on weekday mornings and afternoons in the 1970s and early 1980s. They starred a dapper fellow by the name of Jimmy Randolph, who is accosted by an eager fan who recognizes him from the commercials. He happily takes her to the nearest Albert Merrill School, about which Mr. Randolph is very proud.

The commercial offers vanished views of Columbus Circle, including the Coliseum lurking in the background. You'll also enjoy how it promotes the school's phone number, with a solid old-school exchange: CIrcle5-3900.

As for the merits of the Albert Merrill School, we quote a commenter on the YouTube video, who says he attended the school in the mid 1980s:

Yeah, I wish I knew that before going to that school, I went in October 1984 and graduated in 1985 and you know what my job was after school, Messenger! Wow what a ripoff, the stuff they train you on was so outdated for example the IBM 360 was a computer setup from the late 60's, we did not train on anything new, I can say that they only thing I got out of the classes was keyboarding, they started me on my way to typing, no surprise they closed shortly after 1985!

-- Rolando Pujol

Florent -- gone in name, but not in menu!

Thursday June 26, 2008 2:03 PM By Rolando Pujol

Eater is reporting the surprising news that Meatpacking District pioneer Florent, set to close Sunday after 23 years, will reopen on Tuesday as the R&L Restaurant. That's the name of the diner that preceded Florent in that space, and Florent never took the sign down, nor did it change much of the original restaurant's basic design.

In a further surprise, R&L will retain the menu and the staff. (Those great wall maps, however, have reportedly been auctioned off.)

So, the question arises, why not just keep Florent Morellet in business?

Says Eater, quoting landlord Joanne Lucas:

When asked why Florent isn't involved in the new evolution she responded, "Florent from what I understand is moving on to a new chapter in his life." Many will see this as a happy ending for the Florent saga. He may be gone, but the space will remain unchanged., which never took the R&L sign down.

Lucas is part of the original family that owned R&L back in the day. Eater theorizes that this move is a mere stopgap measure until another tenant is found for the space. But we doubt this development will cut down on the crowds this weekend as Florent calls it quits.

-- Rolando Pujol

The Hotel Carter: A short trip from wherever you are!

Thursday June 26, 2008 1:44 PM By Rolando Pujol

In the strange event that the Joe Buck character from "Midnight Cowboy" needed a place to stay in Times Square again, he'd be delighted to find the Hotel Carter is still catering to the budget-minded.

Now, we don't want to knock the Carter too much. We rather appreciate its throwback qualities. Its marquee carries the razzle dazzle of an old-school Times Square spectacular. The cursive Carter has a graphical quality seemingly inspired by the Castro Convertible or Canadian Club logos. Its massive neon sign lends a spooky glow to the stone facade. A unique mix of humanity shuffles through its lobby.

We could go on, but let's just cut to the chase. What ultimately inspired this post is the hotel's two bizarre slogans.

Here's the first, which you see on the east side of the marquee: A short trip from wherever you are.

Possibly translation: The Carter is in the heart of it all or "Everything in New York is a short trip away."

Or perhaps another meaning is intended. The Hotel Carter is a state of mind, easily summoned no matter where you are. Yes, that's got to be it.

OK, onto our second mystery phrase: You always wanted in Time Square, and less.

Let's see. This kind of reminds us of the old Miller slogan. "Everything you wanted in a beer, and less," and seems to date to the same period.

Clearly, they are telling us that you'll get a sweet deal if you stay the night at the Hotel Carter ... in "Time," not Times Square.

Or something.

-- Rolando Pujol

MORE:

A fantastic New York Times appreciation from 2005.

The hotel's Web site, where the language mangling continues. The hotel is "The Pleasure of Budgeting New York City"

More pictures after the jump

A little subway nostalgia

Sunday June 15, 2008 11:10 AM By Rolando Pujol

To keep the subway vibe going on Urbanite, we refer you to Tracker, which informs us that nostalgia trains are running in midtown through 5 p.m. Sunday.

Throwback Thursday: At Your Good Olds Guys

Thursday June 12, 2008 3:20 PM By Rolando Pujol

Oldsmobile. No matter what GM did to make this brand appealing to younger drivers, it didn't work. Bringing on Ringo Starr and his daughter to remind us that "this is NOT your father's Oldsmobile" certainly didn't help the cause much.

Yes, Olds is long gone, and in the New York area, the brand's demise took the Good Olds Guys with it. Don't know the Good Olds Guys? You're definitely under 30. The Good Olds Guys were simply a consortium of the tri-state Olds dealerships, and they became a household name in the 1970s and '80s thanks to the power of television.

That fame came from a five-second spot that would run at the end of every Oldsmobile commercial. It was a disco-infused jingle that simply said, "At Your Good Olds, Good Olds Guys," coupled with some wicked '70s strings.

The image was a rotating photo grid of Olds dealers. Most were men, but at one point, The Brady Bunch-style grid did include a woman.

So here, from 1983, is a commercial for Oldsmobile Cutlass, available "At Your Good Olds, Good Olds Guys!"

-- Rolando Pujol

WNYC holding moving sale --- cool stuff on stoop

Wednesday June 11, 2008 9:18 PM By Rolando Pujol

Sorry, Mayor La Guardia's mic is not for sale.

As WNYC prepares to leave its cramped studios in the Municipal Building after 84 years, the radio station is having a stoop sale.

You can stop by and scoop up your own piece of WNYC history Thursday between 11a.m. and 2 p.m. in the public plaza of the Municipal Building.

Some mementos up for grabs include:

* A softball signed by The WNYC Independents, the station’s softball team

* Vintage WNYC baseball cap signed by Brian Lehrer

* Copies of the Spy Magazine anthology autographed by Kurt Andersen

* Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama press passes, signed by WNYC Political director Andrea Bernstein

* A selection of vinyl from host David Garland’s secret stash, including Dizzy Gillespie’s “Groovin’ High” signed by Garland

* “On the Media” host Brooke Gladstone’s Neil Tillotson bobbing-head doll. Tillotson, of New Hampshire. was for many years the first person to vote in the presidential primaries

All the proceeds will go to Radio Rookies, WNYC’s youth journalism program.

Several of WNYC’s radio personalities will be at the event, including Brian Lehrer, Leonard Lopate, Soterios Johnson, John Schaefer, Jad Abumrad, and Garland among others.Lehrer, by the way, will officially flip the “On Air” switch at the WNYC’s new home located at 106 Varick St. on June 17th at 10 a.m.

-- Simone Herbin

Cosby Sweaters not feeling the love

Tuesday June 10, 2008 4:30 PM By Rolando Pujol

One of three Cosby Sweaters currently up for grabs on eBay.

Who doesn’t love the Cos? But even his most ardent fans aren’t jumping to buy some of his famously loud “Cosby Sweaters,” which he made famous on his 1980s sitcom. So far, there hasn't been a single bid.

Perhaps the $5000 starting bid on eBay is a bit too much to swallow.

Bill Cosby played Dr. Cliff Huxtable, the perfect husband to Claire and ideal dad to Sondra, Denise, Theo, Vanessa, and Rudy. The sweaters, seemingly inspired by the work of Kandinsky, were arguably as much a part of the show as any character.

If you cough up the dough and snagged one, think of all the costume contests you’d win -- and the benefits surely don’t end there.

The sweater will offer great comfort on a cold winter day – and perhaps you’ll be able to pick up a whiff of Jell-O Pudding Pops. The possibilities are endless.

So no collection of ‘80s kitsch is near complete without a Cosby Sweater.

While, yes, you could dig through most thrift-store bins and probably salvage a decent look-a-like for a buck, why do that when you can own the real thing!

There are some serious bragging rights up for grabs.

Each sweater comes with a hand-written letter of authenticity signed by Cosby. And the best part is that all the money goes to Cosby’s charity, Hello Friend, for children with learning disabilities. The auction ends on June 12th.

-- Simone Herbin

Throwback Thursday: 11's Alive with nostalgia, next!

Thursday June 5, 2008 4:15 PM By Rolando Pujol

As old-school NYC enthusiasts, we here at Urbanite have been waiting for this since we first told you in April that WPIX was going retro to celebrate its 60th anniversary. Well, the CW 11 will briefly become "11 Alive" during its special marathon of classic programming on Saturday, June 14 (from 12 noon to 9pm) followed by a one-hour documentary hosted by news anchors Jim Watkins and Kaity Tong. PIX is also inviting you to share your memories at http://cw11.trb.com/60 (not yet "Alive") where they will gather a great collection of WPIX nostalgia. Let us know of your memories, too -- after all, this is the station that coined the phrase "What's your opinion? We'd like to know."

The schedule will be composed of programs that were once a big part of the WPIX schedule. Here's the rundown:

The Little Rascals

12-1230pm: Teacher’s Pet

1230p-1pm: Hearts Are Thumps/ Feed ‘Em and Weep

Abbott & Costello

1pm Getting a Job

130pm The Actor’s Home

The Three Stooges

2pm Gents without Cents

230pm A Plumbing We Will Go

The Adventures of Superman

3pm Crime Wave

330pm The Perils of Superman

Get Smart

4pm Mr. Big

430pm A Spy for A Spy

My Favorite Martian

5pm My Favorite Martian

530pm A Loaf of Bread, A Jug of Wine and Peaches

I Dream Of Jeannie

6pm The Lady In The Bottle

630pm Tomorrow Is Not Another Day

The Odd Couple

7pm Password

730pm My Strife in Court

The Honeymooners

8pm Better Living Through TV

830pm The $99,000 Answer

WPIX 60th SPECIAL

9-10 pm

Hosted by CW11 News Anchors Jim Watkins and Kaity Tong

Fire up your Betamaxes -- err, DVD recorders -- and have fun. And check out some more vintage WPIX and old school TV stuff here and here. Release is after the jump.

-- Rolando PujolTHE BIRTHDAY BASH BEGINS ON JUNE 14 with A CLASSIC COMEDY MARATHON AND RETROSPECTIVE SPECIAL

June 5, 2008--NEW YORK--The year was 1948, the price of a stamp was 3 cents, a subway ride 10 cents, and a gallon of gas a whopping 16 cents when WPIX hit the air on June 15 as New York City’s first independent television station.

For 60 years, the award-winning WPIX-TV has been New York’s home for groundbreaking television, and to celebrate, WPIX will air WPIX AT 60 BIRTHDAY BASH, a special marathon of classic programming on Saturday, June 14 (from 12 noon to 9pm) followed by a one hour retrospective hosted by News Anchors Jim Watkins and Kaity Tong.

Beginning at noon, the PIX AT 60 BIRTHDAY BASH will feature 9 hours of vintage programs including: The Little Rascals, Abbott & Costello, The Three Stooges, The Adventures Of Superman, Get Smart, My Favorite Martian, I Dream Of Jeannie, The Odd Couple and The Honeymooners (program schedule attached).

9 hours…19 episodes…and all the nostalgia you can cram into a day. Did you know Abbott and Costello were the first non-baseball players to be inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame (for “Who’s On First?) or that Jeannie’s bottle in “I Dream of Jeannie” was actually a bottle of Jim Beam painted gold? Interstitials will run throughout the BIRTHDAY BASH and will feature PIX program trivia and fun facts.

At 9 pm, WPIX will air a 60th Anniversary Special hosted by Jim Watkins and Kaity Tong. The hour-long program will take a look back at WPIX from 1948 to 2008. Today, WPIX is the CW11, the home for great programs like “The CW11 News,” “America’s Next Top Model,” New York Mets baseball and many first run and syndicated hits. In the last 60 years, WPIX has celebrated many milestones including the first instant replay (July 17, 1959 Yankees vs. White Sox) and The Rolling Stones’ first New York TV appearance on WPIX’s “Clay Cole Show” (1964). From the Giants to the Yankees to the Mets…from Cap’n Jack McCarthy to Officer Joe Bolton to Bozo the Clown…From Dawson to Buffy to Serena, the WPIX 60th Anniversary Special will track the stations’ growth from a small independent station to the powerhouse it is today.

Remember playing the PIX PIX PIX game? Did you warm your hands over “The Yule Log” fire? Do you long for “Peanut Butter and Jelly Time?” WPIX is inviting viewers to share their favorite memories at cw11.com/60 which will also feature expanded online coverage of WPIX’s rich history.

In addition, WPIX has created a commemorative insert which will run in Newsday and amNewYork on June 13 featuring a comprehensive timeline of PIX’s greatest moments with vintage photographs.

The PIX AT 60 BIRTHDAY BASH….It’s better than birthday cake…

The real Taxi Driver: The Belmore, August 1976

Thursday May 29, 2008 5:58 PM By Rolando Pujol

News of the Cheyenne Diner's planned move to Brooklyn inspired me to once again dive into my photo archives for these images of the Belmore Cafeteria from August 1976.

Known as a locale in the movie "Taxi Driver," the cafeteria on Park Ave. South between 27th and 28th Streets always had a line of yellow cabs parked outside, day and night.

Sadly it closed in 1981, at a time when it served up to 5,000 people a day. Today a high-rise condominium stands in its place.

The first image, left, is a taxi driver (not Travis Bickle) after he finished his meal.

Below is the sign familiar to all as they entered through the turnstile: "Minimum check 25 cents at all times Strictly Enforced" (Note: Click on images for larger view.)

-- Jefferson Siegel

Photos by Jefferson Siegel

The coffee must be good

Tuesday May 20, 2008 6:23 PM By Marlene Naanes

As the tenement buildings and old shops around him have been torn down and replaced by towering condos, Lower East Side native Carmine Morales and his Classic Coffee Shop have survived ongoing gentrification.

Even so, Morales, 56, was happy to hear his shop was smack-dab in the middle of a 12-square-block area preservationists are fighting to protect.

“It’s crazy how much it’s changed,” he said. “It’s always been a neighborhood of immigrants and poor folk but not any more—you gotta be rich. I always joke, the next thing I know Donald Trump is going to be my neighbor.”

On Tuesday, the National Trust for Historic Preservation designated the Lower East Side as one of America’s 11 “most endangered historic places” in its annual list of architectural, cultural and natural locations at risk of destruction. The national organization is backing a local effort that began in 2006 to create a protected landmark district in the Lower East Side that would be roughly bounded by Allen, Delancey, Essex and Division streets.

Morales said tearing down the old buildings and replacing them with sleek, high-priced condos is changing the face of the neighborhood and erasing its history. Remnants of Morales' own history still remain, like his elementary school (across the street from his coffee shop at 56 Hester Street).

Also enduring the nabe's changes is the tenement-style building he grew up in.

Like many before them, his relatives took the path of many immigrants. His mother grew up in the nabe after her parents emigrated from Italy.

After a stopover in Brooklyn, his father met his mother when he moved to the LES. He opened up Classic Coffee Shop in 1976 with Morales.

Morales moved from his original home but still lives just blocks away from the coffee shop, which is decked out with pictures of his ancestors and ads from the 50s. He said he's been able to stay in the neighborhood even with Dunkin' Donuts or Starbucks popping up "on every corner" because of a nice landlord who only increases the rent 5 percent a year.

Plus, the landlord's dad leased to Morales' father.

Morales hopes the preservation group helps keep the LES' diversity and its reputation as a first home for newcomers. He said he's seen many different cultures coexisting as they get their feet on the ground in a new country and then move upward and onward, making room for the next wave of immigrants.

"This was always a stop over for immigrants," he said. "But [developers are] building too high and they're making condos everywhere, asking outrageous money. That’s going to change the whole face of the neighborhood."

-- Marlene Naanes

Tabloid Tour: A jaunt down Flatbush Avenue

Saturday May 10, 2008 10:25 AM By Rolando Pujol

It's hard to miss this sign -- and the store's purpose is exceedingly clear. Below, The Loews Kings, closed in 1977 and still awaiting a redevelopment plan. Barbra Streisand was an usher here once.

We took a long tour the other day through the Flatbush and Midwood sections of Brooklyn, beginning with lunch at Di Fara's and ending with dinner at Picket Fence on Cortelyou Road. In between, we found lots of noteworthy stuff, including some of New York's most charming residential neighborhoods. A few of us will be dropping occasional posts on our experiences. Here's some highlights from a short stretch of Flatbush Avenue we traversed. On a late Saturday afternoon, it was teeming with vibrant street life and interesting shops and sights. Our photographic highlights continue after the jump.

-- Rolando Pujol

Just a perfect neighborhood stationery store sign, with plastic lettering and a corrugated metal background.

A wonderful detail from the facade of the Loews King.

It's still the Kings, but the "Loew" sign is long gone.

From the look of this relic sign, the discounts were perhaps too deep.

Windows? We don't need no stinking windows.

The Cookie's department store sign is colorful and fun, and the Tudor elements on the building add a touch of the bizarre.

Right off Flatbush, on Synder Avenue, lies the fantastical Crown Center Banquet Hall, which makes its rooms available to weddings, church functions, luncheons and much more.

Dating to 1875, here is the seat of what was once the town of Flushing. It's also on Snyder Avenue.

We were taken by the retro goodness of Diplomat Bowl on Synder Avenue.

And next to the bowling alley is a sign for the Ebinger Baking Company.

Back on Flatbush, the great Erasmus High School produced many a famous Brooklynite.

A peek inside the courtyard at Erasmus, where the original school, which dates to the 1700s, still stands.

Here's a great old plastic sign, made better by the missing letters.

Old stationery stores often have generations of interesting stickers on the front window. Here's a gem from the late 1970/early 1980s for Lotto, then part of "The Empire Stakes."

-- Rolando Pujol

Throwback Thursday: The Eleventh Hour

Thursday May 1, 2008 11:33 AM By Rolando Pujol

Oh, the wonders of YouTube. Two recent postings will be of particular interest to New Yorkers with an interest in the city back in the 1970s. Both were recorded in 1973 from WNBC-TV Channel 4 and are in superb condition. This is impressive in and of itself, considering the rarity of over-the-air recordings from this era, before Beta and VHS began to make inroads.

The first clip, from February 8, 1973, includes a bumper for the Bobby Darin show (he died later that year), and then a news update for "The Eleventh Hour." That was Channel 4's 11 p.m. newscast before it morphed into Newscenter 4, anchored by a name we don't hear much from these days -- Jim Hartz. Among the headlines: Rush-hour trouble on the Penn Central (what we call Metro-North today.) Hartz anchored the report from 1967 to 1974 before heading to the "Today" Show for two years. Also in this clip is a commercial for Tropicana (check out the old container designs) with Sandy Becker of Channel 5 children's show fame. It had been a few years since Becker left the station.

The second clip is from later in 1973, and includes Hartz doing a news promo again, Becker pitching Tropicana again, and an NBC promo for an "exciting Ann-Margret special, with Bob Hope and George Burns." Did the writer of this tag appreciate the hilarity of those words?

-- Rolando Pujol

The last Moondance

Tuesday April 22, 2008 8:04 AM By Rolando Pujol

The Moondance Diner at 12:40 a.m. Aug. 11, 2007, as workers begin pulling

the diner off its foundation. (Photo by Jefferson Siegel)

Following the good news that the Cheyenne Diner has been saved, photographer Jefferson Siegel checked in with his memories of the Moondance Diner's last night in the city, and this photo from its departure:

Just after 9 p.m. on Friday, August 10, 2007. workers began lifting the Moondance from its foundation on the corner of Grand St. and 6th Ave. It was the coldest night of the summer and a bit rainy, which must have been pleasant for the workers but it made the crowd of onlookers even more melancholy.

This was the night police were alerted to the possibility of a radioactive threat against the city, so as the evening progressed there was increased police activity down the block at the exit of the Holland Tunnel.

As night turned into early morning, the diner was lifted on hydraulic jacks. Steel rails were slid under the gleaming chrome structure and it was pulled to the curb. As it was slowly pulled along the rails the basement was exposed to the elements. Just after 6 a.m. Saturday morning the Moondance was finally loaded onto a truck headed for the George Washington Bridge and points west. By Saturday afternoon the temperature had soared back into the 80s as passersby stopped to look through a fence where the diner had once stood.

Duly Noted

Monday April 21, 2008 5:33 PM By Rolando Pujol

Folks soak in the sun last Friday near Giginos at Wagner Park in lower Manhattan. The AIA Guide calls the building, which is also a viewing platform, "a grand brick sculpture." (Photo by Rolando Pujol)

* The next chapter in the saga to save a row of small businesses on Ninth Avenue in Chelsea is May 3, when a protest will be held. [Jeremiah's Vanishing New York]

* Those ubiquitous Star Wars ads around the city have inspired noteworthy subway mashups. [Gothamist]

* ... and who could miss the Slave Leias at Comic Con. [Vulture]

* "Look who's talking to Charlie ... Charlie Rose." D.C. expats may remember that jingle from his less highbrow WRC-TV talk show of the early 1980s, but now this video brings the jingle to life. [Gothamist]

* Illegal advertising blossoms anew, this time for cell phones. [Queens Crap]

* Last Saturday marked the 81st anniversary of Mae West's imprisonment on Roosevelt Island on a morals rap. [Roosevelt Islander]

* Remembering the Brooklyn earthquake of 1985. Yep, you read correctly. [OTBKB via Gowanus Lounge]

* Jeff Koons' sculptures now grace the top of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. [Unbeige]

* And up in Massachusetts, an awesome neon Dunkin Donuts sign from 1957 -- from the era before there was a DD on every block -- is for sale. [Hatch]

-- Rolando Pujol, Cha

Meanwhile, out in LaBarge

Monday April 21, 2008 2:49 PM By David Freedlander

The Moondance before its departure last year. (amNY file)

Speaking of diners, we were perusing the Casper Star Tribune this morning (but how do you stay informed?) when we came across this:

Finally, the Moondance Diner is starting to resemble a diner again

The new foundation is poured, the walls are up, and the barrel-ceiling roof is being installed in Wyoming's newest dining icon -- the famed Moondance Diner that relocated from New York City to this tiny town in southwest Wyoming last summer.

Apparently, things are proceeding apace with the plan to bit by bit relocate all the cool parts of New York City to the mountainous west.

The article details all the work going to getting the diner up and running in Wyoming, including helping it to recover from a 2,000+ mile long journey and a harsh winter in the Rockies.

The new owners hope to open the joint in June, and are adding more seats and this choice detail,

"A "NYC" subway facade will be constructed over the front entrance to keep in line with the New York ambiance."

Actually, all that probably symbolizes is that the place will be dirty, the service slow, and patrons will defecate in the aisles.

Looking Like a Diner Again [CST]

---David Freedlander

It's in the Village --- and "Across 110th Street"

Sunday April 20, 2008 2:19 PM By David Freedlander

One item of note which did not make into our story about the neglected 170+ year old building at the corner of MacDougal and King is that apparently the blaxploitation film "Across 110th Street" shot several scenes in the ground floor clubhouse, which ironically enough, apparently also moonlighted as a real life mafia hangout.

More on the film, remembered more for Bobby Womack's theme song than its plot, is here

-- David Freedlander

An old sign -- and a defiant doodle

Tuesday April 8, 2008 9:53 PM By Rolando Pujol

Jeremiah over at Vanishing New York reported a few days back on the uncovering of an old sign for a Chinese restaurant where the great Latin place Sucelt held court from 1976 until Christmas Eve 2007. Our curiosity piqued, we stopped by to check it out, and it's indeed a true gem of a sign. (The words "Chinese Food" are mostly covered by the big metal roll-down door.)The circumstances under which it re-emerged are incredibly sad, of course, as this defiant marker doodle on the front door, underneath the "closed" sign, reminds us.

We wish they'd bring Sucelt back, too.

-- Rolando Pujol

Throwback Thursday: The Choice is 5!

Thursday April 3, 2008 5:10 PM By Rolando Pujol

We lavished some nostalgic attention on Channel 11 on Wednesday, so we thought we'd now cast a loving gaze at good old Channel 5. And by that we mean, Channel 5 before it was purchased by Fox in March of 1986.

The station was owned by Metromedia for years, and was among the great American independent stations. The highlights? Weekday reruns and cartoons (Lucy, the Bradys, Woody, Popeye), a no-nonsense news department (their great 1985 slogan: The Channel 5 10 O'Clock News: We Give It To You Straight), and a weekend slate of movies and movies and movies (who can forget badly dubbed kung fu flicks and American International horror classics). And there were those old PSAs: Have you done your homework yet, have you hugged your child today, and, of course, do you know where your children are?

Channel 5 had a distinct feel and identity, a texture most TV stations have lost today. They've mostly become repositories of first-run, syndicated programming amid a general blandness and lack of local identity that carries over from market to market. There are exceptions: We wrote of Channel 11 Wednesday and Gothamist had a great piece on Channel 4 the other day. And even Fox 5 got into the retro act, when it celebrated the 40th anniversary of its news department -- here's a link of old clips on its Web site.

What follows after the jump is a highlight list of what made Channel 5 great. Notice the jingle, the bumpers, and of course the work of those old announcers, like the great Tom Gregory with his deep voice, Ed Ladd, who was once a cartoon show host, and Lou Steele, known to viewers with long memories as "The Creep" on "Creature Features."

-- Rolando Pujol

PIX, PIX, PIX ... If you get this ...

Wednesday April 2, 2008 10:33 AM By Rolando Pujol

.. then you remember Channel 11 in its old-school heyday. The phrase was uttered by countless kids who'd call into the station during cartoon time to play a primitive "Space Invaders" type game, trying to match the utterance of a "PIX" with a strike on the screen. (And yes, there was always the clown who'd exclaim "PIX PIX PIX PIX," to the frustration of genial staff announcers such as Ralph Lowenstein.)

TV Pixx is but one of many WPIX memories people of a certain age savor. Another is repeats of "The Honeymooners," "The Odd Couple," and "The Jeffersons." And the thing is, you don't have to troll YouTube or plumb old Beta tapes to find these shows on the CW 11. Channel 11, unlike most other TV stations in the nation, still has respect for its history and the power of its old programming, so you now catch Felix and Oscar at 2 a.m. and George and Weezie at 2:30.

And Ralph and Alice? You can enjoy an hour's worth at 1 a.m. Monday mornings, and, this being the age of interactivity, you can even help program the hour. The station recently began a contest where viewers can select their faves for screening. Hey, that goes with the PIX vibe -- remember the phrase "What's your opinion, we'd like to know."

[Full disclosure: amNY is part of Tribune, the owners of WPIX. Even more disclosure: We're nuts about old TV.] A few years back, WPIX offered a "Pix at Night" slate of classics in prime-time, a noble experiment, as well as an "Odd Couple" marathon hosted by Tony Randall shortly before his death. So we're happy to tell old-school TV fans that they better make sure their cathode-ray tubes are fine-tuned come June. A station spokeswoman told us that WPIX is planning a 60th anniversary celebration with a retro day of programming. Will we hear the 11 Alive jingle again? Hang out with Paula and Carol on "The Magic Garden?" We hope so.

-- Rolando Pujol

Ghosts of the Garment District

Sunday March 30, 2008 10:05 AM By Rolando Pujol

A sign for Lombardy Dresses is accentuated by the steeple of Holy Innocents Catholic Church on West 37th Street. (Photos by Rolando Pujol)

The Garment District still has plenty of bustle during the week, giving you a quick jolt of unmistakable Manhattan adrenaline. On a Sunday morning, however, it's an eerily quiet place, a neighborhood whose heart is not overrun with Sunday brunchers or tourists, except for the odd one sauntering through on the way to the Empire State Building. The desolation lends itself well to ruminating on the neighborhood's lore, and to find it, all you have to do is look up and examine beautiful hand-painted signs. With the late-morning sun just so and the blue sky a severe clear, we had to snap these shots -- hardly a definitive collection. More images after the jump.

-- Rolando Pujol

The shadow of a water tower covers what little is left of a sign.

Two generations of signs for Kaufman Property Management are among the highlights on this wall along Seventh Avenue.

This ad, I believe, is covering up an interesting sign, but Ms. Monroe somehow works here beside the ancient brick.

Who loves ya baby: Kojak's creator dies

Thursday March 27, 2008 4:42 PM By Rolando Pujol

The mind behind "Kojak," perhaps the definitive 1970s NYC TV cop, has died. Abby Mann, who won an Oscar for writing "Judgment at Nuremberg", penned the 1973 TV movie, "The Marcus-Nelson Murders," which introduced the character of Theo Kojak to America. It was a huge hit, and spawned five seasons worth of one-hour episodic drama, ending when the ratings petered out in 1978.

The movie that brought Kojak's character to life was inspired by a real-life New York case -- the career girl murders of 1963, in which two women were brutally raped and killed, and the wrong man sent to prison -- a man who had confessed to a crime he did not commit. The character of "Kojak," however, appears to have been a composite. From a New York Times' correction on a 1996 obit for Det. Thomas Cavanagh, who had been credited as the inspiration for "Kojak": "The character was a composite, based on a number of detectives, lawyers and reporters -- including Thomas Cavanagh -- who were involved in the 1963 Wylie-Hoffert murder case. He was not its sole inspiration."

Mann was proud of the TV movie, but once Universal had to fill airtime with his character once a week, his view soured considerably. What bugged him may well have been the cops-and-robbers cheesy goodness that makes it a cult classic. The Museum of Broadcast Communications in Chicago tells us:

Although he was not involved in the production of Kojak, Mann was unhappy with the treatment of the series by its producer, Universal Television, which, he argued, re-framed the police melodrama as a formulaic cops-and-robbers potboiler, whereas he had sought to show, in The Marcus-Nelson Murders, that law enforcement officials should be watched.

We enjoy "Kojak" reruns to savor Telly Savalas' work, and to enjoy glimpses of 1970s Gotham street life. One New York street icon the show captured frequently is those "snakehead" lamps that are the DOT standard. They were so ubiquitous whenever Kojak would drive his gas-guzzler around town that you might call them "Kojak" lamps.

Want to indulge a "Kojak" fix and revisit the character Mann created? Hulu has the first 22 episodes, complete and with limited commercial interruption.

-- Rolando Pujol

Throwback Thursday: Cracking Egg McMuffin's past

Thursday March 27, 2008 1:31 PM By Rolando Pujol

Herb Peterson holds several examples of his Egg McMuffin. (AP)

Herb Peterson, the inventor of the Egg McMuffin, has died in Santa Barbara, Calif., the city where he invented the dish in 1972. He was 89. The sandwich, however, did not hit market until a few years later -- and is the lowest-cal breakfast dish McDonald's serves! Today, the breakfast staple is a part of Americana. Long gone are the styrofoam containers that housed it, but you can still taste the sandwich's past by hitting play on these two commercials.

The top is from 1989 (from the "Good Time, Great Taste" campaign), and was shot in Manhattan. Be sure to watch out for the Shuttle train, and a glimpse of the Citicorp Center, as the Citigroup building was then called. The second is about a decade older, and a relic of the "We do it all for you" campaign.

Fun fact: A year after the Egg McMuffin was invented, the first McDonald's restaurant opened in Manhattan. The day was March 23, 1973, and the place was 215 W. 125th St. It had taken the chain two decades to crack Gotham City. You can't miss them now.

-- Rolando Pujol

Pocket of old Manhattan poised to disappear

Thursday March 27, 2008 12:16 PM By Rolando Pujol

Ninth Avenue between West 17th and 18th streets is a remarkable pocket of Manhattan the way it once was -- homegrown shops that cater to their neighbors. That's it. The eastern side has a barber shop (with hand-painted sign), a liquor store (alive with bold neon), a dry cleaner (with 1960ish plastic sign), and so forth. And these are long-running businesses, with the kind of patina and roots that enrich the neighborhood. You take them as a group and you ask yourself how such places can hang on -- and what can be done to save them.

Th building that houses them has a new owner seeking to lure high-end retail -- that was the plan back in November. Now, Jeremiah at Vanishing New York reports in a compelling read that most of the shops have been told their days are numbered.

As he observes, "I've been wondering when the block would begin to vanish, but I didn't know it would happen with just one real estate deal."

It's a thought we've had from time to time about this stretch. We made a point of walking by here occasionally just to soak in the old-school flavor.

After the jump are a few more cell-phone shots we took of the street back in October. We plan to make another visit soon. Time is of the essence, as it is for so many of these places in today's New York.

-- Rolando Pujol

Urban archaeology: Banking on hotel's history

Wednesday March 26, 2008 9:57 AM By Rolando Pujol

The New Yorker is one of those hotels that somehow manages to fly under the radar of many who call themselves New Yorkers, but it's always jammed with tourists. Navigating the packed sidewalk outside its Eighth Avenue entrance requires skill and some patience; it usually brings our quick city strut to a stop.

But slowing down outside this 1930 Art Deco hotel also offers an opportunity. The Eighth Avenue facade has a beautiful vestige of Manufacturers Trust bank. This golden door reeks of stolidity and wealth -- your money is safe here, it seems to be telling its Depression-chastened audience. The details are noteworthy -- check out the rays emanating from the female figure.This bank certainly invested in good architecture -- it's responsible for one of the city's finest modern buildings.

The New Yorker recently upgraded its Art Deco-style signage in a faithful way as part of an overhaul that includes a new restaurant, Cooper's Tavern, that has a bit of a Deco flair. Indeed, the management seems to have an appreciation for its history. When you're done marveling at the bank's door, be sure to check out an informative window display of New Yorker history, including a panel (visible after the jump) showing Muhammad Ali chilling in a New Yorker bed while he was at the height of his fame.You have to appreciate a place that understands fully its role in history -- big bands played here, the "Call for Philip Morris" bellhop worked here, Nikola Tesla lived and died here, one of the world's largest barber's shop existed here. It even had the largest private power plant in the country, and a high floor chock full of busy operators frantically fielding phone calls. There was even a tunnel (who doesn't love secret tunnels) that whisked guests to nearby Penn Station.

The New Yorker closed in 1972 and became offices for the Unification Church of Christ before re-emerging as a hotel in the 1990s, still under the church's ownership.

The Times had a piece on the New Yorker in November, and speaks to Joseph Kinney, its engineer and unofficial archivist, who has done a lot to protect the hotel's legacy. Sounds like our kind of guy. The hotel is right down the block from our office, so we'll be writing more about it. We took the picture, shown at bottom, of the redone but still iconic New Yorker sign from our 17th-floor office window.

It's a great skyline slice of 1930s Gotham.

-- Rolando Pujol

Saving "The Bat"

Sunday March 23, 2008 10:18 AM By Rolando Pujol

After a vigorous fan campaign, the Mets came to their senses and agreed to save -- kind of -- the Apple that has graced Shea Stadium since 1980. We hedge because they've only committed to having an Apple presence at the new Citifield -- not necessarily our favorite Apple.

But what about The Bat at Yankee Stadium, that most cherished of meeting places? Newsday's Anthony Reiber couldn't get a firm answer about the prospects for the 120-foot-tall Louisville Slugger. Will it be kept in place, moved to the new stadium, get demolished or be auctioned off? It's anyone guess at this time.

Maybe it's time to launch a "Save the Bat" campaign, before it's too late.

-- Rolando Pujol

Photo: Getty Images, 2006

Thank You Easter Bunny!

Saturday March 22, 2008 10:49 AM By Rolando Pujol

We're easy marks for holiday sentimentalism on Urbanite, so when Easter comes around, we expect to turn on the tube and get some retro comfort. Here's a look at some of the holiday goodies Urbanite craves:

1.) That M&M commercial with the kids

This commercial for M&Ms is warmly remembered as the "Thank you Easter Bunny" campaign. A veritable United Nations of adorable tots thanks the Easter Bunny for those delicious treats that melt in your mouth, not in your hands. A classic jingle and old-fashioned emotional manipulation make for a dependable nostalgia inducer.

2.) The bunny Cadbury's Creme Eggs commercial

The gravely avuncular pipes of Mason Adams provide the warm and fuzzy narration for this commercial. The adorable little bunny clucks like a chicken (these are eggs, after all.) Mr. Adams, one of the most prolific commercial voice-over artists of the 20th century, gently reminds us to buy those eggs ASAP: "Why, they're the best thing to come along since the Easter Bunny, and when he's gone, they're gone."

3.) Dudley Rabbit shills for egg-painting kits

The first ad, from 1984, features a goofy rabbit telling us of four exciting ways to paint eggs, including the classic "Shake-an-Egg"and "Dip-an-Egg." Dudley's instructions for dipping: "Just mix my coloring crystals with water. Dunk a hard-boiled egg. And look at the snazzy eggs you can make!" I can still smell the vinegar now! The second ad is just for "Shake-an-Egg," and dates to 1982.

4.) "The Ten Commandments" on ABC

Here's a promo, voiced by the great Ernie Anderson (of "The Loooove Boat" fame), for a batch of ABC shows, including the 1981 presentation of "The Ten Commandments." Some traditions die hard: Last night, ABC once again trotted out "The Ten Commandments."

5.) "Jesus of Nazareth" on NBC

Robert Powell's iconic performance as Jesus Christ, a sterling supporting cast, Maurice Jarre's stirring soundtrack, and Franco Zeffirelli's direction all combine to make "Jesus of Nazareth" appointment viewing each Easter. The following clip is "The Sermon on the Mount," with that haunting musical theme providing the accompaniment -- definitely one of the strongest scenes in the miniseries.

6.) "Peter Cottontail"

This is more of a Chicago tradition, but here's a black-and-white"Peter Cottontail" cartoon that made the rounds for years on WGN-TV. Part of the same Windy City tradition that gave us "Hardrock Coco and Joe," "Suzy Snowflake" and "Frosty the Snowman."

-- Rolando Pujol

Reminders of a parcel's past

Thursday March 20, 2008 8:34 PM By Rolando Pujol

The Wingate Inn on West 35th Street in one of several sliver buildings that are sprouting up all over the Garment District. And while this slender tower is impossible to miss, so are two reminders of the city's past that are co-existing with it.

Notice the old painted ad for Kaufman Property Management, part of it covered up by the new hotel. The firm's old signs can still be found here and there in the neighborhood. Right beneath the ad -- for that perfect touch of irony -- is some old-school graffiti.

The juxtaposition of the gritty layers of the past with that sleek steel and glass is a textbook reminder of how development is changing the texture of these blocks. It seems whatever side street you take here, there's a few buildings that have been knocked down, awaiting skinny, tall successors. These folks are fighting to save the Garment District before it is truly gone. Here's an amNY story on the subject from July. The Observer took a nuanced look at the neighborhood's challenges last month.

-- Rolando Pujol

Duly Noted

Thursday March 20, 2008 3:28 PM By Rolando Pujol

* Exploring Eloise lore at the newly reopened Plaza. [City Room]

* Paterson's problems set the stage for Governor Bruno? [Daily Intel]

* A place we'd never heard of but now must visit: Chez Brigitte turns 50. [Jeremiah's Vanishing New York]

* As part of our Endangered NYC coverage, David Freedlander goes on a Lost City tour. Check out the photos and the narrated slideshow.

Photo by RJ Mickelson

Farewell, Armando's

Sunday March 16, 2008 10:32 AM By Rolando Pujol

In Brooklyn Heights only occasionally, we'd always be sure to pass Armando's on Montague Street, marveling at the neon sign and savoring the idea that such places were still among us. But we didn't get around to dining there until we were hit with this news: Armando's is closing Sunday after more than 70 years in business.

So we stopped by with some friends Thursday night, and were immediately taken by the coziness of the place, with its leather booths and chummy bar, its eclectic decor (images of old-school Hollywood actors, historic Brooklyn scenes, fancy lamps), and well-trodden wooden floors. It's simply what we just knew it would be: A place we wish we'd been savoring for years, instead of in a last-minute attempt to soak up its charms.

Our meal was satisfying, thanks to our congenial waiter, who so enthusiastically touted the Chicken Rollatini that we each ordered it. The meal, served with salad and side (we chose pasta) was so generous that we skipped dessert. And we spent plenty of time just walking around, trying to make mental notes.

Retirement of the owner sealed Armando's fate, but it's impossible not to put its loss (it will be replaced by a chain store called Spicy Pickle) into the greater scheme of unique New York institutions that have vanished in recent years.

And as much as we bemoan the dimming of the sign's neon, we think this contributor to Brooklyn Heights Blog, which launched an effort to save the sign, summed it up nicely in this excerpt:

It’s not about the sign ... Armando’s had “classed up” Montague Street for 72 years with good Italian food in a classic setting. It is a piece of history in this neighborhood, and we all know there are so few left. I remember eating at Foffe’s with my parents and seeing former governon Hugh Carey there — think him and his ilk would come to Brooklyn Heights for Spicy Pickle? It’s a shame.

The Brooklyn Paper did this round-up in 2001 on classic Brooklyn eateries, which is now painfully out of date. Gage & Tollner, for one, was still around, and if ever there was an unthinkable restaurant loss, it was that place.

-- Rolando Pujol

Check out more photos from our visit after the jump.

Urban archaeology: Second Avenue surprise

Thursday March 13, 2008 2:43 PM By Rolando Pujol

We've been frequenting the "Your Choice Convenience" grocery store at East 39th Street and Second Avenue for years, and never paid much attention to its architecture.

Not long ago, however, we noticed these little beauties promoting "2nd. Ave. Tobacconist" and "Pipes" In fact, you can still load up on pipe gear here, so these signs aren't entirely vestigial. Their survival seems somewhat precarious, though, and it appears there is a missing panel on the left side, right over the doors.

The main sign, at left, is typically bland signage fare.

-- Rolando Pujol

Duly Noted: Client 9 edition

Wednesday March 12, 2008 11:20 AM By Rolando Pujol

* Virgin Mobile jumps on the 9 meme. [Adrants]

* A handy guide to resignation reaction. [City Room]

* No surprise: Kristen could really get rich off this scandal. Not that she needs money. [Guest of a Guest via Daily Intelligencer]

* The work of art "Annotated Spitzer" will go on a tour tracing Kristen's steps to D.C. [Dealbreaker]

* Dealbreaker hosts a celebratory drink today at 5:30 at, where else, Spitzer's Corner. [Dealbreaker]

* Where to get your Spitzer memorabilia. [Gothamist]

In other news ...

* Three restaurants in the news: Minetta Tavern, Florent and Armando's. The news is mostly bad, but hopefully not in Minetta's case. [Lost City]

* What's with the toilet paper ads on the subway? [City Room]

* At the end of Christopher Street, you may spy the end of an era. [Jeremiah's Vanishing New York]

* The evictions continue at the Hotel Chelsea. [Curbed]

* This is awesome. An interactive map of property sales around the city. [Brownstoner]

* Red Hook poultry market is on the block. [Gowanus Lounge]

* A day after looking at bad Time covers, here's an exploration of great Esquire covers. [Gothamist]

King Kong on Channel 9

Monday March 3, 2008 3:02 PM By Rolando Pujol

King Kong just celebrated its 75th anniversary on Sunday with a double screening and Fay Wray "scream-alike"contest at the Film Forum. Back in 1983, New Yorkers marked the 50th anniversary by turning on Channel 9, which for decades owned the rights to the film. Indeed, for New Yorkers older than 35 or so, Channel 9 is inextricably tied to King Kong, thanks to repeated showings on Million Dollar Movie, and, of course, during the Thanksgiving Day monster fests.

In his story on Friday, David Freedlander quotes Film Forum programming chief Bruce Goldstein on the power of repeated exposure through local television:

"This is not only how we got to see King Kong but how we got to become familiar with it in a modern way, where you watch it over and over and get to know it frame by frame."

Get a little taste of the old days by seeing this ad for the 50th anniversary showing on Channel 9, with longtime WOR announcer Phil Tonken at the mic. Here's a little something we wrote last year on Channel 9's holiday monster movie tradition, which continued from 1976 to 1985.

-- Rolando Pujol

Urban Archaeology: Sign's sweet memories

Monday March 3, 2008 2:06 PM By Rolando Pujol

With small businesses routinely closing, a curious phenomenon has emerged: The revelation of old, long-hidden storefront signs, which serve as a reminder of a time when the city was considerably more hospitable to mom and pops.

Oftentimes, what happens is a business closes, and as the current signage is stripped, an older generation sign for that shop is revealed. Or sometimes a sign for an entirely different business comes to light that has long been lost to history.

This sign, which surfaced at a shuttered shop at East 33rd Street and Madison Avenue, is a real gem, and is an indication of how unique business signs could once be. The chief name is Jeanettes Cards and Gifts, and, on the left, is a sign for Barton's Bonbonniere. Barton's, according to this site, sold kosher candies, with the first shop opening in 1940. We found this thread reminiscing of a time when Barton and Barricini candy shops were widespread. (We know of a Barricini that's still going at One Penn Plaza, at least, the name is still there.)

This candy shop sign offers an interesting visual treat. (See close-ups below.) Check out the variety in fonts; the effort that went into the individual metal letters; and the overall flair and class and thought that the sign still displays, even now in its well-worn state. Consider how today, a simple awning and some computer-generated words are usually considered sufficient. Notice, indeed, how these old signs were an art of sorts, a lost art that is increasingly being trashed every day.

Savor this sweet sign while ye may.

-- Rolando Pujol

Update: More from Vanishing New York, with news that this and other businesses here were shuttered to make way for a condo/hotel tower. And Vanishing NY notes that the reliable and tasty World of Pickles closed across the street, for what will likely be another tower. This place was a favorite stop when we worked at the nearby 2 Park.

You don't need a million to look like a million ...

Sunday February 17, 2008 3:23 PM By Rolando Pujol

.... Oh thank you!

If you get the reference, then you also remember the Ritz Thrift Shop, or more precisely, the long-running commercial for this merchant of gently used fur coats. The original shop at West 57th Street, which opened in 1934, was shuttered in 2005 and knocked down to make way for a large condo building. Doing research for this post recently, we were surprised to discover that the shop has re-emerged on Seventh Avenue and West 29th Street. It was an unexpected turn in a city where long-time shops, many of which are still thriving, are closing every day because of real-estate pressures. Our business columnist, Farnoosh Torabi, stopped by Ritz Furs. Read her story here. The shop has been doing well since its move, with old and new customers alike finding their way back to the business, which is now nine stories up a commercial building. Its new owners purchased the mailing list and stock from the original owners, managing to keep a New York institution alive.

Keith Tauber, the original shop’s longtime general manager and now the co-owner of Ritz Furs, tells Farnoosh: “[Before the move] we felt we were one of New York’s best-kept secrets, but now we are definitely one of New York’s best-kept secrets.”

But helping get the word out is, believe it or not, that old commercial, which hasn't run on television since 1988 but routinely comes up in nostalgic conversations about old New York television, sparks excited exchanges on video-sharing sites, and is regularly referenced by people who shop at the store today.

The ad is indeed a New York classic, with a clipped, distinctive announcer delivering sophisticated narration as a suave young woman gets off a city bus, saunters up to the Ritz Thrift Shop, is fitted for a fur, walks out resplendently clad, and then politely thanks the announcer after he says "you don't need a million to look like a million."

You'll be thanking us when you click here, where you can see the complete commercial, a black-and-white copy of what was a color ad. (It will play automatically in a little box above the text). This link also offers a fascinating essay on the commercial that's mandatory reading for longtime New Yorkers.

-- Rolando Pujol

Credits: Top image is from commercial via Ritz Web site; middle image: Co-owners Keith Tauber and Jeffrey Geters model furs, photo by Jonathan Scheff

Extra: Here are some photos of the Ritz Thrift Shop we snapped in July 2005, just as it was closing.

Pelham One Two Three, do you read me?

Monday February 11, 2008 9:14 PM By Rolando Pujol

We're pumped about the remake of the 1974 classic, "The Taking of Pelham One Two Three." Our sister blog Tracker reports that film crews checked out the Hoyt Schermerhorn station on Monday, where some filming of the '74 version was done, and will be in the Bronx on Tuesday. That's an excellent sign. IMDB reports filming begins this month, so you'll be reading more about it here soon. We truly can't wait to see how this version holds up against the original, a masterpiece of acting, pacing and soundtrack that is one of the best time capsules of 1970s New York.

-- Rolando Pujol

Endangered NYC: Purveyors of skis, old-world spas, sports coats

Sunday February 10, 2008 2:49 PM By Rolando Pujol

A trip yesterday to the Scandinavian Ski & Sport Shop on West 55th Street was rudely interrupted by the fact that the longtime store had lost its lease. There was an everything-must-go sale, and not much in the way of ski equipment left. We'd never shopped at Scandinavian before, but were dispatched by friends who had enjoyed good experiences there.

Defeated in our quest to patronize a non-chain shop, we happened to notice right next door that the old clothing shop deLisi had vanished some time earlier, but its interesting sign survived.

From there, we headed down Madison Avenue, only to find that ladies-who-lunch spa mainstay Georgette Klinger was no more, having abruptly closed in December due to bankruptcy. We'd never been to Georgette Klinger, but we liked the old-world feel of the place, the distinctive door with the G and K handles, and the terrazzo floor outside with that cursive logo. Whenever we'd pass, we still imagined the woman with that imposing name lording over the place, making sure her high standards were met. (Klinger, in fact, died some years ago, and the chain of GK shops also vanished last year.) This was one of those places we were simply happy to know existed, and happy to know still had a clientele. (Among their fictional clientele? Carmela and Meadow Soprano, as mentioned in an episode of "The Sopranos.")

We shuddered at all the shutterings. It's depressing. And typical.

Update: The fiery fallout continues from the Georgette Klinger shuttering. Racked has more.

-- Rolando Pujol

Reach out and touch some history

Sunday January 27, 2008 1:58 PM By Rolando Pujol

Utility carts are common sights on city streets. They bear the company logo, usually Verizon or Con Edison, and also bear years of "contributions" -- graffiti, marker doodles, stickers of all manner (you'll often find an old Andre the Giant or a Tattoo from "Fantasy Island"), and of course, all manner of accumulated street grime. They are often overlooked, but make interesting subjects of study if you actually stop for a second and see what's there.

The one profiled here caught our eye in Manhattan this weekend because, deep behind the layers of gunk, lies a bit of telecommunication history. It says "New York Telephone, A NYNEX company." New York Telephone, of course, was the name used by the local phone company until 1994, when it adopted NYNEX, the name of its parent company that had been formed in 1984 when the old Bell System monopoly was broken up. NYNEX, which essentially stood for New York, New England, and the X for some undefined new territory or future, continued through 1997, when it merged with Bell Atlantic. We then had that name until 2000, when Bell merged with GTE to form Verizon, an invented name that sounded bizarre at its birth but is just a part of city life now.

Yet somehow, this little cart has survived in all its Bell System glory. The 1969 Bell logo is there, featured in the NYT logo, above, as well as alone on the cart's hood, right, where it's in even larger form. Furthermore, the old blue and yellow Bell System stripes survive as well. Those stripes were common once, used on the side of phone trucks as well as on hard hats.

-- Rolando Pujol

Bonus: A utility truck featuring the old Bell Atlantic logo recently spotted in Manhattan.

And here are two old NYNEX Yellow Pages ads from the cleverly punning campaign of the late 1980s. Plus: A look at the state of the pay phone business, and the demise of the possibly last rotary pay phone.

No more lovin' at Levitz

Wednesday January 23, 2008 8:43 PM By Rolando Pujol

The demise of the Levitz furniture store chain, which is now in the frenzy of its post-Chapter 11 final-clearance sales, didn't come as a surprise. In an era of more fashionable (and sometimes less expensive) furniture options from the likes of Ikea and Crate and Barrel, coupled with the worsening economy and subprime lending meltdown, Levitz, which had emerged twice before from bankruptcy, seemed doomed. Indeed, the similar Seaman's furniture (remember, "See Seaman's First," the jingle went) met its demise years ago.

Levitz was founded in Lebanon, Pa. in 1910, and eventually had locations around the country. (For years, we thought this was only a New York chain.) But we'll miss Levitz mostly because it was another retail fixture that worked its way into our everyday vocabulary -- it was just always there. And we knew it was there because of that memorable jingle. It was simple and catchy: "You'll love it at Levitz." The Levitz name won't altogether disappear. Some non-affiliated Levitz shops also originated by the same family, called Sam Levitz, will carry on, but you'll have to visit Tucson, Ariz., where members of the Levitz family moved decades ago, to see them.

Still, it's not an entirely bad time in the furniture business, despite the housing-market decline. Raymour & Flanigan, which entered the city market just a few years ago, will scoop up Levitz locations. Raymour did the same with old Huffman Koos stores.

As a proper send-off to Levitz, here are some interesting examples of the "Love It" campaign, including the earliest we could find, from 1978.

-- Rolando Pujol

Photo: From pbo31's Flicker stream

Introducing Tabloid Tours: This stop, Staten Island

Tuesday January 22, 2008 6:29 PM By Rolando Pujol

For a couple of years now, a bunch of us from amNewYork and Newsday have made a tradition of going on extensive, well-researched walking tours of city neighborhoods every few months. We've taken to calling them Tabloid Tours, given our respective editorial homes and our fascination with sordid tidbits we learn along the way. (Every time we're outside a Stanford White building, we think about this.) The deal usually involves one of us researching the neighborhoods, with that person serving as the tour guide. But inevitably, we find we've all done some research and we share our passions, and explore spots we didn't expect to encounter. We've hit up Harlem/Hamilton Heights, Murray Hill, Elmhurst, the Lower East Side, and have even piled into a car and looked for traces of New York City history upstate in the Catskills.

Our most recent sojourn was to Staten Island, where we had a whirlwind day that took us from St. George ferry terminal to Tottenville, the southern tip of the island, and, for that matter, of New York state.

Here are some tour highlights:

St. George

The World Trade Center memorial near the St. George terminal is a stirring tribute to the 270 residents of the boroughs who died in the Twin Towers. It perfectly frames the World Trade Center site.

St. George Historic District

If what you know of St. George is just the ferry terminal, you're missing one of the most architecturally fascinating neighborhoods in the city, the landmarked St. George district. St. Marks Place is particularly special with its Shingle-style gems, but wander around several streets back there, including Westervelt Avenue and Phelps Place.

For sale? We'll take this Westervelt gem ...

Shingle-syle delights on Phelps Place ...

And this Art Deco treat -- the Ambassador Apartments -- is not to be missed, at 30 Daniel Lowe Terrace ...

We were pleased to run into Kevin Walsh of Forgotten NY, definitely one of our walking-tour heroes. Here's his superb report on the apartments.

Nearby, a statue of St. Paul holds court outside the Pauline Books and Media ...

Snack time! Time to eat the donuts at Country Donuts near the ferry

Port Richmond

Port Richmond's downtown is being revived by Mexican immigrants, even as old-school places stand guard. You must come here, no questions asked, to enjoy a pie at Denino's. Here's more in our recent City Living entry.

Lunch at Denino's

The calamari was so good, our intrepid photographer Andrew Wong didn't have time to snap a full plate ...

And now down to business. Two beautiful pies that were promptly inhaled ...

And it's closed this time of year, but Ralph's Italian Ices would have been perfect for dessert, and it's just across the street ...

So we decided to try some wonderful, fresh-baked bread at Melone Bakery. The aroma from blocks away sold us before even taking a bite. Here's Lauren Johnston's take on the visit ....

The Mexican presence is unmistakable ...

Tottenville

A bus ride and transfer later, we were in Tottenville, the southernmost point in New York state. We didn't really fully appreciate this Victorian, former oyster-trade town, as it was already dark and quite cold, but we got a sense for the place and plan to come back. For one, we missed The Conference House, where colonists, including Ben Franklin, on Sept.11, 1776 famously decided to keep the fight going against the Brits. Get the lowdown in our City Living profile.

The view of New Jersey, a short boat ride away across the Arthur Kill ...

The historic Biddle House. A curious local grilled us to no end, seemingly not understanding why we were taking photos of this house at night. We were on the up and up, as this photo proves.

We stopped for some good pastries at Silverio's on Amboy Street ...

And went back in time at Egger's, an ice cream shop on Amboy Street ...

The Staten Island Railway

For most of us, it was our first time on the Staten Island Railway, which looks like an "F" train that lost its way.

It was interesting to see a Staten Island map in the slot normally reserved for a map of the subway system ...

The seats have become canvas boards for scratchiti enthusiasts ...

Manahatta!

We boarded the infamous Andrew J. Barberi for our return trip. We knew the ferry that was involved in the deadly crash in 2003 had been returned to service, but glimpsing the big letters as we boarded was a chilling, unexpected sight.

Approaching Manhattan ...

Our day was capped by a fine midnight meal at Harry's Cafe in the Financial District ...

We were awed by this beautiful wine-rack display ...

Photos: Andrew Wong, Elisabeth Stuveras and Rolando Pujol

Text: Rolando Pujol

A funky Flatbush fixture

Tuesday January 22, 2008 1:22 AM By Rolando Pujol

We're intrigued with this sculpture, a somewhat pop-artish cluster of puffy trees on Flatbush Avenue across from Prospect Park. The work, which we'd guess dates to the 1970s or early 1980s, certainly denotes the sylvan wonders that lie nearby. But it's also a reminder of the woodsy origins of Flatbush. We must tip our hats to our Dutch forebears, to whom we can trace this word. As explained by the Parks Department, the Dutch "vlacke bos," or flat woodland, eventually morphed into our English-sounding Flatbush. More here and here on the origins.

-- Rolando Pujol

Staten Island is for carb lovers!

Monday January 14, 2008 4:30 PM By Lauren Johnston

Calling all carb-a-holics! Among the many things you've likely never heard of on Staten Island -- generally the metro area's least explored borough -- is Melone Brothers bakery.

Well, it's time to get wise, hop on the ferry and head to Port Richmond because this place boasts some of the best Italian loaves around (plus rolls, bagels, heros, the works). The Tabloid Tours team sampled a a classic Italian loaf fresh from the oven and -- after just barely avoiding a fist fight over the last crumbs -- gave it a unanimous thumbs up.

Added bonus: It's steps away from Denino's pizza -- home of the five-borough famous clam pie.

If you go: Staten Island Ferry to the s44 bus takes you to Port Richmond Avenue. Melone's is just off the avenue at 17 Hooker Place; (718) 816-5111. So .. now, mange!

-- Lauren

Unearthed: A bit of radio history

Monday January 14, 2008 4:14 PM By Rolando Pujol

One of the joys of living in a city with so many layers of history is that you never know what might unexpectedly resurface the next time some building is torn down or a subway station is rehabbed. This discovery is hardly historic by a mile, considering recent finds at this subway station, the Columbus Circle stop, but this old ad caught our eye. It's a partial remnant of an ad for Hot 97 from at least a decade ago, by the looks of the logo, perhaps longer. It simply touts the station's very red logo, with a tag, "soooo hot!" and the station call letters on the bottom right. A nifty little find, and one that won't last for long.

-- Rolando Pujol