March 29, 2007
SIN-É, FINIS
These New York Times elegies for lost neighborhood institutions are beginning to pack all the poignancy of a roll-call, but it's still nice that they do them. Lower East Side club Sin-é is closing its doors this Sunday, unable to keep up with the Joneses that have moved in around it.
Yes, another one bites the dust: Sin-é (pronounced shih-NAY), after a weekend of goodbye shows, will close for good on Sunday. Over two decades and three locations, the owner, Shane Doyle, maintained it as a cozy, unassuming place for up-and-coming musical acts, charting the perimeters of gentrifying areas as surely as Starbucks now defines them. But two months ago, as wealthy neighbors and city and state regulators encroached, he decided his low-key vision was out of step.
“I look at this block, and I know it’s over,” Mr. Doyle, 55, said in an interview in his club on Attorney Street near Stanton. Once an industrial stretch of liquor warehouses and auto-repair shops, that block is now within spitting distance of several million-dollar apartment complexes. When those buildings’ residents started calling to complain of noise and crowds, he knew. “Then the obvious thing is, O.K., let me go somewhere else,” he said. “But I can’t find somewhere else. And even if I could the lifespan would be too short.”
I liked Sin-é. The short depth of the club combined with the height of the stage provided good sightlines regardless of where you were standing, and if you could grab a seat at the far end of the bar, all the better. Something I learned from the Times piece: Sin-é is Gaelic for "That's it."
(Photo from Crackers United at Flickr)
Tagged: club, les, sin-éPosted by Lexiphane at 9:26 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
March 26, 2007
BOARDWALKING THE PLANK
I recommend that next weekend you get on the F train heading out of or away from Manhattan, towards Brooklyn and the line's terminus: Coney Island. It's not just a Sunday, it's April Fools' Day; and there is no better place for careless fun than Coney Island's boardwalk. Unfortunately, April 1st marks the beginning of the end for Astroland, the boardwalk amusement park that's been around for 40 years and that has served as an anchor to Coney Island's much longer history as an amusement destination.
The owner of Astroland, Carol Hill Albert, who also owns the Cyclone roller coaster, sold the site to Thor in the fall for $30 million, property records indicate, a deal she said she was reluctant to make. "I couldn't risk going out of business," she said, contending that years of anticipated construction on Thor's property presented a large obstacle.
Ms. Albert, whose family has owned Astroland for all 40 years of its existence, said there were too many bureaucratic obstacles to year-round amusements on her site. "I think Joe Sitt has been taking all the city's attention and energy," she said.
Suffice it to say that Thor Equities has its sights set more on condos than corndogs and cotton candy. If you've never been to Coney Island, this summer is the time for you to make a trip. It's one of those places that you'll be able to imagine or remember years from now, but that you can actually experience for the last time right now.
Posted by Lexiphane at 2:09 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
March 10, 2007
THE OLD NEIGHBORHOOD GROWS UP & UP
While most eyes are directed downtown to the massive amounts of development occuring on Manhattan's Lower East Side, my old stomping grounds on the Upper East Side has highrises popping up like mushrooms. Not that Yorkville around 86th St. was a slouching neighborhood of low-rent tenements before. Especially along 86th St. between Lexington and 2nd Ave, there were a number of 20-30 story buildings. Most of the avenues and side streets, however were limited to five or six-story apartment buildings that gave the neighborhood a very cozy atmosphere. This may not be the case for long.
The cornerstone of all this development, given its proximity to the subway, its size and the retail it will offer, is Extell Development's half-city-block behemoth, the Lucida. The limestone-based, glass-curtain-walled building will encompass the area from 85th Street to 86th Street on Lexington and is the U.E.S.'s first LEED-certified residential green construction. Its 18 stories will contain 110 condos, an H&M, a Barnes & Noble, a Sephora and a Bank of America.
One block east, at Third Avenue, is the massive crater that will be the Brompton, a 206-unit condo building developed by the Related Companies. And one avenue over from that, on Second Avenue, three five-story tenement buildings are about to be torn down to make way for a 20-story condo building. (The L-shaped parcel contains 105,000 square feet of buildable space and is coveted by "proven New York City developers," says Alan Miller, a senior director and principal at Eastern Consolidated, the company selling the piece of land.)
To put their proximity in perspective, if you stand on the north side of 86th Street midway between Second and Third avenues, all three sites will be visible once they're under construction.
And there's more.
Residents of the neighborhood can only hope that all the new neighbors occupying these luxury condos will be well-heeled enough to take car services to work, because the 4/5/6 subway line is already stretched well beyond its peak operating capacity. A single delayed train during rush hour is enough to send the UES into chaos, with overflow passengers pouring back up onto the sidewalk at 86th St., jamming buses full, and creating what looks like a stream of refugees heading down Lexington Avenue on foot. With the 2nd Ave. Subway still a decade away at best (I maintain it will never be built), commuter relief is a long way off. Read more about the neighborhood's development in the New York Post
Tagged: condos, development, real estate, subway, ues, yorkvillePosted by Lexiphane at 12:27 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
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