Stars Sings Showtunes At Marie's Crisis

Darren Criss was in and around town all week, spotted first at the Lady Gaga "rave" last Sunday, and then a couple days later in one of my favorite West Village haunts, old school piano bar Marie's Crisis. It was there that he took to the ivories and played "A Whole New World" from Disney's ALADIN as he sang along with Broadway star Lea Salonga. Quite a duet for a weeknight at Maries!

I have been there to witness other film/TV folks, singing (Heather Mattzarazzo, Parker Posey), but Darren Criss would have been amazing because he is so damn cute/talented. I'd seen him play guitar (famously) but didn't even know he plays piano too--and is pretty good at that. It's moments like these there should be some sort of gay bat signal to call me back to the Village for a bit of showtuning with the stars!

There Goes The Pizza Box, 1957-2013 RIP

So I leave the Village for less than two months and the place falls apart!  

One of my all-time favorite local spots and my personal best-slice-of-pizza joint Pizza Box closed up shop unceremoniously last Thursday. I saw this picture posted on Jeremiah's Vanishing New York and felt a Proustian-pang for yet another vestige of my NYC youth. It had been there 55 years and wondrously felt like it and the guys behind the counter were always friendly, especially to the locals like myself.

Though the pizza there was great and draft beer only 2$, what was truly special was the outdoor seating area which gave a glimpse into the priveleged backyards of the stately town homes on Macdougal and Sullivan which shared an impossibly lush garden space with suburban-sized trees more than 60 feet tall. This secret garden was one of the treasures of living in the neighborhood as you could retreat to the relative quiet of this leafy space and have a slice and a beer and maybe even a cigarette (if someone else had a pack!). 

In the six weeks since I moved from the Village to Astoria, this has been the second notable retail death in the neighborhood--the first being Joe's Dairy on Sullivan. What's next...Once Upon A Tart? It makes me sad to see things changing like this but it also reinforces part of why I left in the first place--the Village is just not the homey local place I used to know anymore.

Goodbye, WTC View....Hello, Astoria

First, my apologies as writing on the blog here has been spotty lately. But the reason is that I've been busy working on a major life transition. After weeks of planning and packing, today is my last day in my apartment in Greenwich Village. An opportunity came up to have a place of my own in Queens so I am heading out of Manhattan and losing my "WTC View", featured in both the play and film I wrote of the same name. 

However, to be honest, I actually lost that view on 9/11...the new World Trade Center cannot be seen from my bedroom window like the last one could, as its location is now slightly to the west of where the old twin towers were. I can see One WTC though, when I leave my apartment directly at the end of Sullivan Street (here's a pic I took yesterday). I was skeptical about the new tower at first but have to admit that it now looks amazing. And, fittingly enough, they topped it out a couple weeks ago and just finished the facade work last week. So, as I leave my apartment, it's complete...at least on the exterior.  

I am making the move from the Village to Astoria, where I have a new place that has more space and even a backyard. It will be a big change after all these years in the Village. I moved here in 1989 to attend NYU film school and lived in 3 different apartments all within a roughly 4 block radius of each other. So I've been in the hood more than 23 years! But I'm excited for my new neighborhood and my new borough too. I'm now only a few blocks from the famed Kaufman Astoria studio (one of the first film backlots of the silent era), which is now home to lots of film/TV production (including SESAME STREET!). It also houses the Museum of the Moving Image, which has a wonderful cinema and repertory schedule which I look forward to checking out.

For those who want to contact me, my email and phone remains the same (though no more landline,  not that anyone would notice!).  The address has changed so if you have any housewarming gifts (!) or Christmas letters, drop me an email and I'll send the details. And I'm a 15 minute subway ride from midtown so visiting is easy. Anyway, the NYC adventure continues as I move on up, to the far east side ;) Thanks for the memories, Manhattan! 

Photos of Life After Sandy In The Dark Zone aka SoPo

SoPo (that's South of Power!) is the new name for the fashionable but somewhat desolate neighborhood in Manhattan, south of 26th street where the power grid has been offline since around 8:30pm on Monday when Sandy blew into town. I was at home when the lights went off and stayed in the Village for the next three days, living off my supplies and having some festive candlelit dinner parties with local friends.  Here's my photo album of what life was like down in The Dark Zone.

This was a piece of a scaffolding that was torn apart at Hudson and Morton. Warning is right!

This tree fell at the intersection of Christopher and Washington, totally blocking the sidewalk

 The Stonewall Inn said they were open but by Tuesday afternoon, that was not really true anymore.

 People using payphones! How novel but necessary. It was like the 20th century had returned.

This was the scariest thing I saw...a huge village, artist loft skylight picked up and smashed on 8th St.

This was a section of a large tree on the west side of Washington Square. 

Here's a look down the main east/west path of Washington Square. It was closed to public.

Here's the now infamous Chelsea dollhouse which lost it's facade during the early hours of the storm.

My friend Kevin Donaldson hosted a delicious candlelit dinner on Tuesday night.

This was a bus going down the Bowery on Halloween. Scary!

Walking around a dark east village on Halloween, we found this one sign of the holiday.

An Effort To Landmark The Rest of The West Village

The New York TIMES reported on a story of local interest to me over the weekend; a new push on a long-delayed effort to get landmark status for my neighborhood, which the TIMES refers to as the "South Village".  It's an area that is well known for it's local music/entertainment spots, like the Back Fence, Cafe Wha and the former Village Gate (now converted into a CVS)

It comes as a shock to most people that this section of the Village has not been landmarked.  Most of the West Village, west of 6th avenue, was covered by landmark status decades ago. But this section remains unprotected.  Lately, there has been a lot of development in the area, including reckless knockdowns and ugly additions, including a new plan by NYU to add 2 million sq feet of classroom space to the area.

The City government, however, doesn't feel this is an urgent situation. But, living here, I can say that things have been rapidly changing for the worse in the last five years and will only increase without any of the protections landmark status offers.  I hope that this latest effort meets success and that the unique qualities of this Village in the heart of Manhattan will be preserved.

West Village Bar PIECES Saved By New Lease

For nearly 20 years, the West Village bar PIECES has been a popular gay hangout on Christopher Street. It was due to close next year but its landlord has changed their mind, based on community support for the bar.  You can read the full story on NEXT magazine's website (where I occasionally do nightlife coverage).  I was asked to do an exclusive interview with the establishment's owner Eric Einstein over the weekend as he wanted to get out the word that bar was going to stay in it's current home for a few more years at least.

Ghost Town NYC: Hurricane Irene In Pictures

So it was a quiet weekend here in New York.  I mean that quite literally.  The city was deserted from Friday evening through Monday morning due to the concern about Hurricane Irene and the first-ever voluntary shutdown of the NYC subway.  In the end, the hurricane was a bit of a wash (pun intended) but it was fascinating to be in Manhattan minus all the people.  It was a post-apocalyptic weekend, minus the apocalypse thank god!

The picture above is Seventh Avenue, taken from the heart of Greenwich Village and looking uptown.  Amazing.  Not a car or pedestrian in sight.  Below are some more pics; the intersection of 6th avenue and houston, the IFC movie theatre (which closed for the weekend), and a couple of creative tape designs in Village storefronts.  It's like life in a ghost town; all we need are some tumbleweeds rolling down the streets.

This is eerie--6th ave and Houston, a major downtown intersection

No movies at the IFC Center in the Village

Rizza Hair Salon--artsy!

The Jonathan Adler store--patterned tape, of course

Greenwich Village Becomes Rome for TV Pilot "Pan Am"

Walking down Macdougal Street yesterday, I noticed a number of tiny little cars from the 1960s.  As I moved down the block, I saw lots of trucks, lights and cables for the shooting of the new ABC pilot called PAN AM.  They were doing a scene in an "Italian cafe", with famous Cafe Reggio made over with new signs and a large green-screen in the middle of the street on which to project some amazing view of Rome in post.

I looked for Christina Ricci, the star of the ABC version of MAD MEN, told from the perspective of the female Don Draper's of their day; stewardesses for the classic airline, Pan Am.  I did see some extras with big bouffants but no Christina which was no surprising given the fact she is incredibly short.  Anyway, it was nice travel to Rome on my way to work....if only for a few minutes.

St. Vincent's Isn't The Only Place Closing

Today is the last day of operation for St. Vincent's hospital in the Village.  For more than 160 years, the hospital has taken care of the neighborhood.  It has even taken care of me when I had my bike accident a couple years ago and broke my wrist.  But as of tomorrow, it will become merely an "Urgent Care Center" tending to local cuts, scrapes, and minor medical emergencies.  Anyone needing surgery will have to go uptown.


Though the closing is shocking, what I've noticed lately is somewhat more shocking; the number of local businesses shutting down in general.  As the nation's economy supposedly improves, things here have seemingly gotten worse in recent months.  There are countless "closed" or "for sale" signs in storefronts all over the Village.  Some of them are stores that have been around for decades and others just a year.  


I've been taking some photos recently of all these closing....these pics below are just in a few blocks radius of my apartment. Along with the closure of St. Vincent's, they are truly signs of the times.

A Village Institution Closes Its Doors

After 45 years, Joe Jr.'s burger joint and diner on 6th Ave & 12th has closed. The last burger was flipped over the weekend and, only a few days later, the place has been gutted according to Jeremiah's Vanishing New York. The reason? Another landlord dispute. This seems to be happening all too frequently downtown where a thriving local business is wiped out, often to be replaced by nothing. It's been over a year since Florent closed in the meatpacking district when the landlord there tried to triple the rent and the store remains vacant. It's really a shame because not only were the burgers great at Joe's it had some hearty atmosphere on the side. I loved that old lunch counter with the swivel chairs. (Photo courtesy of Brian Dube's New York Daily Photo blog)

Cupcake of the Week

For years, I've been a devoted fan of Magnolia and, more recently, Billy's Bakery and their delicious cupcakes. But since those places have become somewhat oversubscribed recently, I've been searching for a new cupcake joint.

Tonnie's Mini Cupcakes is in a storefront that I'd often passed while walking to the subway at West 4th Street. It's in a shared space on 3rd with that weird cheesteak place that always made me think, well, maybe they're not such great cupcakes if they don't have their own store.

Well, recently Tonnie's expanded to their own store on Macdougal between 3rd and Bleecker (pictured above). So I stopped in and picked up a chocolate w/vanilla icing. What was interesting was that they put the icing on after I ordered it making it super-fresh. And the cupcake itself was extraordinary. And a whole lot moister (as they used to say in those Duncan Hines ads) than Magnolia or Billy's.

So if you have a sweet tooth and are looking for a Village fix, stop by Tonnie's for a treat. I give it my highest, sugary seal of approval.