Results tagged “forgottenny”

Today Brooklyn venue Magnetic Field announced they would soon be closing up shop. From their email, which likely saddened many patrons of the place when it hit inboxes earlier:

After five-plus years of rocking Atlantic Avenue and entertaining thousands of customers and welcoming hundreds of great bands, Magnetic Field in Brooklyn will be closing its doors on March 31st. Co-owners Lee Greenfeld and William Crane would like to personally thank all of Magnetic Field’s staff and patrons for their loyalty over the past few years, as well as all the numerous bands who have brought some truly tremendous and memorable performances to our stage. We are currently working on a blow-out last week of shows to run March 24th through the 31st.

Kevin Walsh of Forgotten NY directed our attention towards this site, which features a number of photographs from a New York that brings to mind the fact that we're not just in another decade in this city; we're in another century. The picture above is identified as probably 55th St. near 8th Ave. in Manhattan and taken in 1970. We wonder if "Sexual Freedom in Denmark," then playing at the Eros Theater [right-hand side of the image] is now available on DVD? There are more pictures after the jump.

The city's last privately owned island was sold to the federal government for $2 million. South Brother Island, a 7-acre island (just west of Rikers Island), will be turned over to the city's Parks and Recreation Department and will remain, as amNew York reports, "significant nesting colony for several types of shore birds, including Egrets, Cormorant, and Night Herons." According to the NY Times, the deal, which was "brokered by the Trust for Public...

Famed New York realtor Barbara Corcoran chimed in on a matter of public aesthetics and the nature of our city by advising that homeowners would be best served by tearing up their lawns and gardens and paving them over as a suitable place to park their cars. We'll let her speak directly on the subject, as it seems too insane to try to rephrase ourselves. From Friday's Daily News:Q. My wife and I have...

Forgotten NY's Kevin Walsh reminded us that tomorrow is the Norwegian Day Parade in Bay Ridge. The parade celebrates Norway's adoption of a constitution and many people of Norwegian descent or with Norwegian ties celebrate by wearing traditional Scandinavian clothing, riding in Viking ship float, dressing as Henrik Ibsen and, yes, donning Viking helmets.

There's a fun NY Times City section article about the Queens Museum of Art's Panorama Challenge. The Queens Museum of Art's panorama is a to-scale model of New York City: One inch equals 100 feet (the Empire State Building is 15 inches tall) and the model was originally designed for the 1964 World's Fair, as a "helicopter" ride over New York City. (And, yes, Parks Commissioner Robert Moses commissioned the panorama in 1964, just as he commissioned the Queens Museum of Art's building, the former New York City Pavilion for the 1939's World Fair.)

A six-foot tall chocolate sculpture of Jesus which will be displayed at a Midtown hotel next week is stirring up controversy. Catholics are calling Cosimo Cavallaro's "My Sweet Lord" an "all-out war on Christianity."

Photograph by the food of the future of the demolished dome of the Revere Sugar Refinery (more at Forgotten NY)

• The Port Authority has officially agreed to fund $1 billion of the Freedom Tower's construction
• Dr. Denton Sayer Cox, whose patients have included Andy Warhol and John Steinbeck, told police he was beaten and burned with a chemical at York and East 73rd Street but police believe he was the "victim of a gay pickup gone wrong" in his Upper East Side apartment. Either way, he's fighting for his life.
• A corrections officer gets a $1 million settlement because his female boss said things like "You better come and get some of this. My stuff is not going to wait for you forever." and "Why don't you let me make a man out of you?"
• Admissions for NYC public schools are "much more difficult" than college according to parents
• Bickfords, Corvingtons, and bishop crooks: Forgotten NY looks at old-fashioned street lamp design
• A 12-year-old boy died yesterday morning, after falling out the window of his 5th floor apartment in Harlem. His father believes his son pushed the air conditioner and may have tried to retrieve it, but the police are investigating.
• New anti-outdoor advertising poster boy: Restaurateur Keith McNally who picketed the Hotel Gansevoort today
• And in days old news, the Law & Order episode based on the Adrienne Shelly murder was came in second last Friday night, beaten by an episode of Numb3rs.
Continue reading "Extra, Extra"

In the crossroads of the "Can't Beat 'Em, So Join 'Em" chronicles and the "____ Diner, R.I.P." annals, there's is the Moondance Diner. The NY Sun reports the SoHo fixture will be razed for - you guessed it - luxury condos. But that's not all: Moondance owner Sunil "Sunny" Sharma was originally going to sell the property, but decided to develop it himself with Extell's Gary Barnett and others.

Via Triborugh, the New York Public Library has this cool map showing the Brooklyn Bridge Station and City Hall loop. The station was first opened at the start of the Interborough Rapid Transit Line on October 27, 1904, but it closed in 1945 - there were big gaps between the platform and doors of newer and longer trains. Since the station wasn't used very much, the MTA decided that the Brooklyn Bridge station was enough.

Although we haven't heard the old "urban jungle" metaphor applied to New York lately, preservationists continue to churn out new lists of "endangered" architectural species. The newest, Ten to Save: Endangered NYC comes from an editor at amNewYork, Rolando Pujol. It is derived in part from the New York Landmark Conservancy's Endangered Buildings Online, which was unveiled last summer July.

1. From the Gothamist Newsmap: A check cashing joint robbery in Brooklyn, a confined space rescue in the Bronx, and an evidence search in Queens
2. Ugh, a lawyer asked a client for a blow job in return for taking her case; the client is trying to sue him but says the Manhattan DA's office won't take the case, even though she recorded the lawyer admitting he propositioned her!
3. Gowanus Lounge predicts the Red Hook will be at the center of Brooklyn's 2007 development fights
4. Six year old Aidan Fraser, whose father died in the World Trade Center when he was a baby, left Montefiore Hospital today after extensive surgery
5. The Ricky Van Veen way to losing weight includes electronics and various sorts of memberships to Netflix and a gym
6. Ha! With Nascar's TV ratings falling, having a track in Staten Island becomes more desired because of those hot NYC ratings
7. Old New York is being dug out in Lower Manhattan
8. And the Fort Greene ice age rock is in its new Queens home - Forgotten NY spied it!

For the next four months, the 145th Street Bridge will be closed to traffic and pedestrians as the Department of Transportation reconstructs the bridge. And it is a total reconstruction - new bridge arrived on barge and is parked nearby. From the NY Sun:

Once the old bridge is disassembled and disposed of by the contractor, Kiewit/Pully, the new trusses will be floated in at high tide.

Continue reading "145th Street Bridge Gets Ready For "New Bridge""

The big real estate news of the day is that the empty lot on the southeastern corner of West 42nd Street and Eighth Avenue - right near the movie theater on the south side of 42nd Street - will finally get developed. The NY TImes' coverage of the deal starts off with:

A New Jersey developer plans to build a $1 billion office tower on the last parcel in the 13-acre Times Square redevelopment district, bringing an end to the 26-year effort to clean up an area that was known as the Deuce when it was a motley collection of movie houses, sex shops, T-shirt stores, pimps and drug dealers.

Hazy summer skyline by e-liz on Flickr.

- And will it rain tonight? Either way, have a great, safe time!

- The state political party logos are pretty lame

This is what a hot real estate market has wrought: One of the city's oldest Jewish cemeteries has had construction debris fall onto dozens of tombstones in Chelsea. Congregation Shearith Israel built three cemeteries in Manhattan, and the Chelsea location, at 21st Street between 6th and 7th Avenues, was in use in 1828-1851 (one is at 55 St. James Place and another is at 76 West 11th Street). It seems like mortar from The O'Neill Building, which faces 6th Avenue between 20th and 21st Streets, fell in the cemetery, and experts have been called in to see how it can be carefully removed. The O'Neill's developer, Elad Properties (which is also renovating the Plaza Hotel) was told by the landmarks commission that it would need to "bear responsbility" of the cleaning and repair tombstones. Elad is working with the congregation to "monitor" the situation; the NY Times reports that protective scaffolding was set up to "cover the tombstones closest" to the O'Neill building. [Another interesting thing: The congregation agreed not to build anything in the cemetery that would block O'Neill residents views.]

There are a couple articles about a year-old mob murder today, and why not? It happened at the Kreischer Mansion in the Charlestown section of Staten Island. Bonanno associate Robert McKelvey was killed by other Bonanno family associates over a "bad debt" after being lured to the house by the groundskeeper and mob associate Joseph "Joe Black" Young. The NY Times notes the crime is unusual because Young is black, as mob associates of color are pretty rare (in fact, another one of the accomplices is Hispanic). McKelvey was strangled, stabbed, then drowned in "an ornamental pool surrounded by flower beds, elaborate brickwork and 1.3 acres of manicured lawn" - allegedly under orders and a $8000 bounty from Gino Galestro, McKelvey's boss in the Bonanno family. Naturally, the Post's article doesn't mention how Galestro was a former NY Post driver. Anyway, Young and his crew cut up McKelvey's body and burned it in the furnace. And when investigators tried to find the furnace, they found out it had been replaced because the owners are in the process of making the mansion an assisted-living facility! Galestro and Young are charged with murder for hire, which can mean the death penalty.

- And we'll be updating our post on the Greenpoint Terminal Market fire

Another dispatch from the center of the world's most overblown real estate bubble: apartments in the soon-to-be-converted Williamsburgh Savings Bank building are going for up to THREE MILLION DOLLARS. What do you get for that price? A fairly long elevator ride and a great view of the north wall of Bruce Ratner's new Nets Stadium project. Hot! As if that news wasn't upsetting enough, the New York Post is reporting that beautiful lobby of the bank is going to be converted into a BORDERS BOOK STORE. If you want to see the building before it falls to the rampaging forces of redevelopment, Amy says you can take a tour on May 7th for $25.

- And tomorrow is Mayor Bloomberg and Boston Mayor Menino's "National Summit on Illegal Guns" at Gracie Mansion; mayors from Dallas, Philadelphia, Seattle, Trenton, Jersey City and DC are among the attendees

Police are still investigating the murder of 61 year old William Oliver, whose stabbed body was found in Prospect Park on Saturday. Oliver was found near the Vale of Cashmere, a secluded area near Grand Army Plaza (here's a map of Prospect Park). He was described as an "avid walker" by his siblings; Oliver usually shuttled between his brother's and sister's homes by walking in the park. The Vale has been a gay cruising spot in the park, leading police to suspect the death may be hate crime related. While Oliver's family is not sure if he was gay, Clarence Patton of the New York City Gay and Lesbian Anti-Violence Project told the NY Times that "at least 10 percent of victims of anti-gay violence are not gay, but rather are targeted in places thought to be gathering spots for gay men or lesbians," saying, "At the end of the day, a man is dead, and it doesn't really matter."

- New Yorkers may not always be polite but New York City has become a shining example of how to fine your citizens into polite behavior.

Here's a must-buy for all you NYC-architecture nerds: a manhole doormat made out of recycled tires! FLAXart has models for New York City, London, and Paris-- so if you've got friends overseas, this might make a nice gift. You can also buy the NYC version at the NYC.gov store, if you'd like to give the money to the city.

The Morris Yacht and Beach Club was destroyed by a four-alarm fire this morning. At least 120 firefighters reported to the scene, trying to save the landmark building, using a fireboat as well as groundpower; they believe the fire, which was noticed at 1:30AM, started on a lower floor. The Victorian mansion was originally built by the Hearst family in 1850, and was later converted to be a yacht club in 1899. It's situated at the southern tip of City Island and has been a catering hall as well as working boat club. The Morris Yacht and Beach Club is also the home of the Fordham sailing team.

Last night, two children were shot in two different incidents in the Mott Haven area of the Bronx. First, a 13 year old was shot in the leg yesterday afternoon while he was outside MS 220 on Brook Avenue; police think his shooter was aiming for someone else. Then around 7:30PM, a 10 year old girl was also hit in the leg while she was playing outside, and she was caught in the crossfire of some arguing men. The two children were both brought to Lincoln Hospital, where they are recovering. Is it too much to hope that the city can do more to stop the illegal gun trade, as the Mayor tries to encourage gun control laws?

Well, it's unclear whether or not it's the most haunted house of Queens, but 141-36 222nd Street seems that way. The NY Times has a big feature about the Victorian home that has fallen into disrepair, puzzling and captivating neighbors. There are a bunch of theories about who owns the house, and questions about whether or not someone is living there (maybe, though there's no electricity - but there is a bunker...maybe). The Times tried to do some investigating, contacting the Adult Protective Services (a caseworker couldn't get in), Department of Buildings, Department of Finance (the taxes are paid in cash!), to no resolution, though someone with the same name as the remaining son of the last seen owners works for the NYC Transit Authority. The house's mystique makes us think of Boo Radley from To Kill A Mockingbird, what with stories of infirm parents, an unseen son who doesn't want any part of the public eye.