cityrag

slice of construction
heavy new construction has popped up directly next to the development of the hotel at 200 Allen St. assumed it was expansion of the hotel's footprint, but when we stopped by to take photos, the construction supervisor said a new pizza place is going in. it was an informal conversation but he mentioned the name will be "La Sala". and from the looks of the serious construction going on, gutting deep into the walls and at least one story below ground, it's going to be a big place. with all the sucky over-development in the LES, we're keeping our fingers crossed that some good pizza comes in.

Pizza restaurant construction << -- >> Pomeranc's Allen St Hotel

pet store no more

not sure what will be taking over this pet store that's resided on the corner of Houston and Eldridge for over 20 years. as we expected, searching Curbed, we found they scooped a bit of info on the place back in January - and it looks like ANOTHER HOTEL! dam, our heads are spinning with the increasing misery the over-development of our hood has brought. as L.O.C.O. can tell you, it's already out of control and ruining the beauty of one of NY's most historic neighborhoods and the lives of people living here. we can't even keep track of the number of hotels being built in the LES, think it's up to 5. fuck.

Bowery breakdown
many of the East Village's oldest and coolest building were recently demolished to make way for the Avalon Chryistie's additional complex that extends several blocks north of the massive main structure (seen in background.) knowing this beauty was coming down, we snapped a couple shots to remember her by.

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the building (and graf) in the second photo in this post are also gone

Future New York
paper is the perfect collectable for city living. there's tons of great stuff out there to find and it's easy to store. under the bed we've got a box full of interesting postcards, photos and other various scraps of paper collected over the years. inspired by One Man Safari, we took a snap of one of our favorites, a cool old NY postcard (circa 1917) titled: Future New York, "The City of Skyscrapers," New York - that depicts a city packed with skyscrapers, a sky filled with small air craft and trains that run through buildings...

sign of the Times
inside the massive construction site for the new NY Times building...

and here's some info on the architecture and construction:
The new Eighth Avenue tower for The New York Times
NYT, Hearst Headquarters to Spruce Up Eighth Ave.
$320 Million Construction Loan for 52-Story NYTimes Headquarters

(thanks Josef for sneaking inside and sending us the photos!)

NY manholes
manhole covers are one of those things that we get sentimental about. after a life spent in the city, we've stepped on thousands. their bold, gritty, and historic presence are an imagery that screams NYC! call us crazy, but we love those big metal circles. and so does Forgotten NY. their great article on NY Manholes and Coal Shute Covers is packed with excellent photos and fascinating info!

in tribute to Forgotten NY's great article we decided to snap some manhole cover photos. a testimony to the amazing variety and abundance of NY manholes out there, all 9 manhole covers above are from the intersection of Chrystie and Rivington in the LES (each with a different pattern!)

Manhole Tattoo and Exploding Manholes from the Gothamist

demise of the LES: Pomeranc's Allen St. Fuckover begins
the Lower East Side has put up with a lot of crappy gentrification, but this seriously scares us. work has begun on a new hotel Jason Pomeranc is building on Allen St. (between Houston and Stanton)...

we read Curbed religiously to keep an eye on what's being developed in the LES, but had been turning a blind eye to this story. today it smacked us upside the head so we dug in, and what we found is very ugly. the articles below speaks for themselves, but the bottomline is: Jason Pomeranc is determined to change the landscape of our hood. if you care about or live in the LES or EV, these are must reads...

Good News for People Who Love Luxury Boutique Hotels

just when one may have feared the boutique hotel craze had peaked, comes word from Deborah Schoeneman that 60 Thompson owner Jason Pomeranc plans to open two new hotels next year, one at 6 Columbus Circle, and one on the Lower East Side. Of the LES hotel, which will feature 32 luxury condos, plus a spa, swimming pool, and all the other requisite trappings of hell, Pomeranc notes, "Allen Street is an overlooked and neglected frontier."

Pomeranc's Allen Street Hotel: Domination!

Perhaps nothing, though, will change the face of Allen like the proposed new hotel, still unnamed, which will tower over the street and certainly raise objections from those who frequently oppose out-of-scale projects... The hotel is also supposed to have bars, restaurants and an outdoor pool and will have two entrances, one on Orchard Street and the other on Allen, which Michael Pomeranc, the developer, calls a ''boulevard in the raw.''...

Hotels are replacing hipsters on changing Lower East Side

Jason Pomeranc was quoted last July as saying of the Thompson group’s 18-story plus project, “We were presented with the opportunity to not only impact the skyline but to begin creating it.” Whether or not other developers will follow suit in “creating” the Lower East Side skyline remains unknown, but depending on zoning restrictions, the look of the neighborhood could change drastically in the near future

Know Your Hoteliers, Part 4: Jason Pomeranc

The Hotness of Jason Pomeranc

it also looks to us like this building may be the real culprit that moved Kush and several other store fronts on Orchard St. a Curbed reader speculated that it was due to an apartment development, but the Allen St hotel demolition looks like it's breaking right through the block. and when we walked around to Orchard, the area that formerly housed Kush is EXACTLY behind the Allen St construction and has been recently boarded up (see Destruction on the LES: Where Will the Hipsters Play? )

big blue dumpster
every once and a while we fall in love with a dumpster...

and Amy from NewYorkology has her own dumpster romance going.