forbidden LES

I love being a college student in the city. Most of all, I love that if it weren’t for a lack of funds, I’d always have something entertaining to do. Unfortunately, on the Lower East Side, I also need to be two years older to do some of the things I would want to. No, not frequent the plethora of bars, but attend shows at the 21 plus music venues scattered throughout the neighborhood.

Just to show you how unfortunate this is for myself and other under-aged city dwellers, I’ve compiled a list of some of the places I’ve been yearning to go to, but alas, cannot because of my tender age:

Cake Shop (152 Ludlow St.)- Café by day, music club by night, the Cake Shop has it all. Before 5 p.m. the place is unassuming as a café that sells baked goods and coffee along with records. But when the Cake Shop makes its nightly transformation and the bar downstairs opens for business, the doors close to the under-21set, and open to obscure indie and rock bands.

 Arlene's Grocery (95 Stanton St.)- The iconic, red former butcher shop and bodega houses two bars, hosts live music seven nights a week in the band room and on Saturdays between 3 p.m. and 7 p.m., an open mic night. Shows are always less than $10 and at a venue known for booking bands such as The Strokes before they were famous, what do you have to lose?

Rockwood Music Hall (196 Allen St.)- I've often walked past the curtained windows of this club praised for its intimate setting. A great place to hear up and coming musicians because of its small size, the legendary music hall also enforces a two-drink minimum, making it a little too pricey for me anyways. 

Mercury Lounge (217 E. Houston St.)- Run by The Bowery Presents, Mercury Lounge is a stop off for bands heading up to other Bowery clubs like The Bowery Ballroom, Terminal 5 and Music Hall of Williamsburg. Here, music lovers can enjoy one of the best sound systems around in a setting said to emote Lower East Side cool. I wouldn’t know, but perhaps in two years i'll get to experience the ambiance myself. 

commercialization on the LES

Johnson, a cozy boutique at 179 Orchard St., closed for good Oct. 15. The whimsical cardboard castle that dominated the window display is gone. Instead, there is a single, typed sheet of paper. It’s a farewell letter.

But just up the block the American Apparel chain’s Lower East Side store always attracts customers with its bright lights and even brighter clothing. And the employees at Steven, the more upscale branch of the global Steve Madden chain, on Rivington Street are busy helping shoe-seeking customers find the right fit.

The contrast between Lower East Side independent boutiques and company owned businesses is stark. More chains are moving in.  Today they include Earnest Sewn (90 Orchard St.), Skunk Funk (181 Orchard St.), American Apparel (183 East Houston St.) and Steven (100 Rivington St.). These commercial stores have transformed the face of the neighborhood once dominated by artsy entrepreneurs.

“The creative people that started the neighborhood have all been evicted,” said Mary Adams, a former Lower East Side storeowner. “That’s not to say it’s not a nice neighborhood, it’s just completely different.”

Mary Adams The Dress had been a fixture on the Lower East Side for 25 years. The couture shop vacated its second Ludlow Street location this past May. Adams was evicted from her building on the corner of Ludlow and Stanton streets before moving to 138 Ludlow St. in 2001. The first eviction came about because, according to Adams, landlords “wanted all the old people out.”

 During the seven years Adams spent at the second store, the neighborhood became even more inhospitable to longtime small business owners. She was eventually forced to leave the area entirely, relocating to Murray Hill, because of a sharp increase in real estate tax. Her bill spiked from $2,500 in 2006 to $18,000 in 2008.

Current rent prices are a far cry from what they were when Lower East Side was known for its thriving drug culture. In the 1980s and 90s artists moved into the neighborhood. They were followed by young professionals and as the arts scene gave way to music clubs and vintage shopping the area became a hipster haven. In recent years, the neighborhood has undergone yet another transformation, becoming increasingly attractive to luxury condominium developers and the companies behind chain stores.

According to Faith Hope Consolo, chairman of the retail leasing and sales divisions at Prudential Douglas Elliman Real Estate, rents have risen dramatically throughout the Lower East Side, with 40 percent increases not uncommon. As those that cannot afford such rent hikes leave the neighborhood, the area is beginning to appear more attractive to chains.

“The Lower East Side, historically an area for fairly new immigrants has been gentrifying in recent years,” Consolo responded in an email.

 Steven is a product of this gentrification. The shoe store moved into the area in December. At one time, a family owned restaurant occupied the space. While Adams feels that such changes are pushing the neighborhood even further from its former bohemian character, Linda Micaj, Steven’s store manager, views the increase in company owned businesses as beneficial.

“You know what you’re buying here,” Micaj said. “Do you really want to spend $300 on a dress that someone else wore because it’s vintage? I know I don’t.”

Micaj is not the only one that supports the commercial shift. Mitchell L. Moss, a professor of Urban Policy and Planning in the Wagner School of Public Service at New York University, sees the changes in the neighborhood as unquestionably positive.

“The Lower East Side has become a much more attractive place for young people to live,” he said. “There’s a much more lively and interesting night life with more shopping.”

But Danielle Linzer, the education coordinator at the Lower East Side Tenement Museum, feels that increased commercialization threatens the immigrant community that currently calls the Lower East Side home.

“The developers aren’t the ones that stay and invest in the community but they are changing the neighborhood so that locals can no longer afford what’s for sale in businesses,” she said.

Local Naama Shefi also opposes the increase in upscale, commercial stores.

“If it continues like this I’ll probably move to a different place,” she said.

 Mary Adams The Dress and Johnson already have. 

i'll have what they're having

Go past the American Apparel clothing store, some Japanese restaurants and a falafel place, until you hit the big brick building on the corner of Ludlow and East Houston streets. The neon sign above spells out “Katz’s Delicatessen.” Inside, people in baseball caps and sneakers, often with guidebooks in hand, stretch from the door down the length of the deli counter. They are there for the traditional Jewish deli fare—pastrami, corned beef and latkes—just like the generations of patrons before them.

Katz’s Delicatessen has been a fixture on the Lower East Side since 1888, and remains so despite the changing neighborhood. Now, though, it is predominantly tourists that enjoy the famous pastrami on rye, rather than new immigrants looking for a taste of the Old Country.

A family of Russian immigrants started the now-famous deli at a time when millions of Eastern European Jews began claiming the Lower East Side as their own. These immigrants formed a distinct community and Katz’s Deli gained a following for its ability to recreate the flavors of the new immigrants’ home countries. Today, the current owners of Katz’s, Fred Austin and Alan Dell, serve up the same old world tastes that attracted past generations.

Since Austin and Dell took over in 1988, not much in the restaurant at 205 E. Houston St. has changed. There are a few new additions to the menu, such as the Philly Cheesesteak ($10.60). Once-bare walls now feature portraits of the owners with various celebrities and politicians and table service is offered at the Formica tables along the wall. But other than this, the way the place operates has stayed relatively the same. The techniques that predate refrigeration are still used, making Katz’s a true delicatessen. More importantly, the pastrami, sliced fresh in front of your eyes, is still the best around.

The crowd, however, has changed. At lunchtime, the large cafeteria-like space is filled with people of all ages, ethnicities and even countries. In the center of room two different couples enjoy Katz’s most famous dish, the pastrami on rye. One of these is a young Japanese couple staying on the Upper West Side. They came here for their first meal in America. It was listed in their guidebook. The mature couple to at the table to their right hails from England. The woman says she and her husband came to the deli because it is so well known.

“When we decided to come to New York, it became one of our ambitions,” she said.

According to Franklin Veres, who works behind the counter at Katz’s and has lived on the Lower East Side all of his life, the majority of customers are now tourists.

“Look at the prices,” he said. “A lot of locals can’t afford these prices.”

The price of Katz’s pastrami sandwich ($14.95) is steep for some members of the community that still includes immigrants. They are now mostly Chinese and Hispanic, a different type than when the deli began serving their traditional sandwiches 120 years ago. As long as the restaurant’s pastrami on rye stays the same, though, there should be no problem keeping the line at the deli counter full.

the LES wants change

Lower East Side businesses are expecting change for the better after this Election Day, if Sen. Barack Obama is elected, that is.

Storeowners in the neighborhood characterized by vintage shops and independent boutiques have been feeling the pain of the recession in recent weeks but with Obama elected, they hope people will be more willing to spend their money.

Today, Robert James, owner of the Robert James boutique on Orchard Street, dressed his mannequins in t-shirts that read “vote”. He wears a Barack Obama t-shirt, leaving no mystery as to the candidate he voted for.

“The country will be in better stead under a Democratic president,” he said. “That’s the way it’s been in recent times, economically and environmentally.”

James’s boutique has only been in business for two months, but has already seen the effects of the recession. In fact, he obtained his loan on the day the stock market first fell dramatically and says its amount dropped significantly.

“I’m just holding on for dear life now," he said. "The numbers right now are good, but it’s tough.”

Kris Jensen, owner of Hello Sari, a clothing store on Broome Street, agrees with James’s choice of president. She says business for her has been bad for at least a year and has only gotten worse recently.

“When Clinton was president my business was great,” she said.

For Lower East Side storeowners the choice is clear: a democrat in the White House will restore confidence to shoppers who, today at least, were few in number.

remembering 9/11 in october

As we near Halloween, a holiday centered around taking (both candy and identities), it is important to remember those who have given of themselves. Today, my class and I gave a little of our time to learn more about one of the most tragic days in American history.

John Henderson, our tour guide at the World Trade Center Tribute Center, told us that his wife works with the dying as a hospice volunteer. “I couldn’t do that,’ he said. “But I can do this.”

A history buff and employee of Graduate Enrollment Services at NYU, Henderson is a docent at the Tribute Center. He helps visitors see what he saw, and feel what he and so many others felt on Sept. 11, 2001.

I’ll admit that I thought little about the falling of the twin towers, what is so often called the defining moment of our generation. Even on that Tuesday morning, I was so far removed from downtown New York City that imagining the scope of the situation was impossible. Like Henderson, my first thought was that it had to be an accident, but even after my 12-year-old self came to the realization that it was not, I didn’t shed tears. I didn’t internalize the event as a tragic yet definitive moment in my history. Today that changed.

As Henderson led us around the perimeter of the acre-sized construction site where the towers used to stand, across the Southern Sky Bridge where pock marks are still evident, and into the Tribute Center where the photos of those murdered layer the walls, I came a little closer to realizing the impact of two planes into two skyscrapers in one iconic city. Listening to him tell the stories of the survivors and those lost, and hearing the sniffles of my classmates as he did so, I came closer to understanding that the events of Sept. 11, 2001 were more than just a brief moment in history. They have become a part of the fabric of our generation.

Pete Hamill

Pete Hamill, journalist and author of multiple books including, "Downtown: My Manhattan", his memoir that we just finished reading, came into class to chat with us about his work and the city that has been his lifelong home.

Hamill told us that he wrote "Downtown" for his grandson, who lives in Westchester. “I wanted him to be able to understand why this old guy with the beard has such passion for this strange city without cows in it,” he said.

In reading the book, I came to understand this passion. With each chapter, it is as though you are walking through another New York City neighborhood as it changes over time. This is no coincidence. Hamill takes walks alone to inspire his writing.

“You can’t know any of these places unless you walk it,” he said. In his rhythmic, soothing voice that contains the potential to lull you to sleep, we walked together through his life as a writer in New York.

As a child, Hamill’s mother told him and his brother never to look down on anyone unless you’re giving them a hand to get up. For Hamill, writing is a way of helping people up. In his journalism he writes with the aim of making small changes. And with his books, which he begins by writing longhand on yellow pads of paper, the aim may be similar. In addition to writing "Downtown" for his grandson, he wrote with the idea that in the midst of the biggest wave of immigrants in ten years, children would be able to read the book and then teach their parents about where they live.

As a lifetime New Yorker, Hamill also has a unique perspective on New York today. Though he may tumble back into reverie on his walks, or even when talking to a class of journalism students, he is still very much in tune to the present. I got the chance to ask him about one of the most pressing issues for this neighborhood: gentrification. In his opinion, the Lower East Side will always be home to immigrants. For him, it is a transitional neighborhood.

“People want to make money and move on,” he said. “They’ll always look back nostalgically on it but they’ll be somewhere else.”

human interaction is so overrated

If you can't wander the neighborhood on foot, visit virtually! Virtual Lower East Side (vLES) is a free site based on the neighborhood and created by MTV. You can discover new music, attend shows and meet new people, all without leaving your room. After all, why should you walk around when you can dress up an avatar to do it for you?

what's new, LES?

As always, the new and the old are in competition between East Houston Street and East Broadway. This week though, there are both conflicts and peaceful unions of the past and present Lower East Sides apparent in everything from events to news headlines.

Throughout the Lower East Side, signs advertising “CMJ Madness” cover the windows and sidewalks of bars and clubs. This week, the neighborhood will be hosting indie bands across the country for CMJ, the annual College Music Report festival. Free shows will be going on all week at almost all Lower East Side music clubs in addition to the official showcases of individual artists that require a festival pass.

As the neighborhood welcomes the new indie bands of our future, it says goodbye to a store that has called the Lower East Side home. Due to skyrocketing rent prices, Johnson, a boutique on Orchard Street will soon be closing its doors for good. To clear out inventory quickly, everything is marked down between 50 percent and 80 percent.

While one Lower East Side business suffers from the changes occurring within the neighborhood, another recalls the good ‘ole days. The Museum at Eldridge Street, the organization responsible for restoring the Eldridge Street Synagogue, will begin holding “Preservation Detectives Family Tours” every Sunday. These family tours will allow children ages 5 to 10 to learn about the neighborhood’s history through participating in various activities such as role-play and even an arts and crafts project. Tickets are $10 for adults and $6 for children and senior citizens. Click here for more info.

Another area museum isn’t having such luck in its efforts to preserve the past. The Lower East Side Tenement Museum may be headed into some legal troubles. Robert DeNiro (yes, the two-time Academy Award-winning actor) claims that an item on display in the museum is actually a prop from the film “Analyze This.” DeNiro is threatening to sue the museum for the mystery item’s return. Read more about the dispute here.

Embodying the current vibe of the Lower East Side, Seward Park Urban Renewal Area Matters (SPURA) wishes to remember the past while looking forward. Community members wishing to examine the park’s history and contribute to its future evolution can attend meetings at various locations in the coming months. The next one is tonight, Oct. 22, at 6:30 pm at the University Settlement on Eldridge Street. RSVP to register@goles.org and learn about future meetings from the Good Old Lower East Side (GOLES) website.

Join me on the good old LES this week to usher in future musical obsessions while remembering the fixations of the neighborhood’s past.

the street vendor project

A lot goes into that cheap cup of coffee that you may buy from the man on the corner every morning. Sean Basinski, the director of the Street Vendor Project, knows just how much that is.

After graduating from law school at Georgetown University, Basinski decided to combat the issues that vendors face in their attempts to earn a decent living in America. During a summer spent as a vendor, Basinski’s mastery of the English language helped him navigate the system better than some current street vendors are able to do. Now, he opens their eyes to areas of their work in need of improvement.

Street vendors have to follow a long list of strict rules and regulations. Tickets begin at $50 for the first violation and increase from there. Subsequent fines can reach $1,000, a large sum for anyone, let alone a street vendor working to support a family in the area or back in the vendor’s home country.

“The rules don’t really make a lot of sense and they don’t have a lot to do with food safety,” Basinski said.

Following these rules isn’t always easy for street vendors. The city has put a cap on the number allowed. The Department of Consumer Affairs hasn’t opened the waiting list for non-veteran merchandise vendors since 1992, and there are only 3,000 food vendors allowed in the city at a time. Compare this to the 25,000 that covered the city at the turn of the century. For many vendors, renting or purchasing someone else’s license is the only way to obtain one, though this is as illegal as going without a license at all.

The possible violations don’t end there. Certain streets are off limits to vendors. On the Lower East Side, you’d be hard pressed to find a vendor anywhere but on Delancey Street, despite the fact that many other streets in the neighborhood receive plenty of foot traffic. Certain blocks in the city are also off limits certain days. It’s difficult to keep so many different regulations straight, which is why vendors can become targets for police looking to write tickets.

Basinski will be further studying the obstacles street vendors encounter in Nigeria on a Fulbright award. If he has his way, you may one day be able to say that the cup of coffee from the stand on the corner came to you just as easily as the decision to purchase it.

a local vendor

On the corner of Clinton and Delancey streets, Juan Vrena calls out to passersby in Spanish. His small pushcart adorned with a colorful umbrella promises a frozen treat to those suffering from the insane October heat. Like some other Lower East Side residents who have emigrated from Spanish-speaking countries, Vrena makes a living as a street vendor.

This week, Vrena will put away his cart until next summer. Winter should arrive soon, and there will be little demand for the flavored ice that he sells for $1 a cup in four varieties: coco, mango, cherry, and rainbow. He has been selling from his cart on the Lower East Side for ten years. The locals who come to Vrena’s pushcart know him by name and they converse in Spanish as he fills small Dixie cups with flavored ice.

Vrena says that seeing the members of the local community is one of his favorite parts of the street vending job. He came to the United States from the Dominican Republic 44 years ago and has not been back since. Now, Clinton Street is both home and workplace. Like the other street vendors on Delancey Street, Vrena has become an integral part of the Hispanic community on the Lower East Side.

Despite having lived in the United States for many years, Vrena speaks little English. The same goes for most of the other street vendors that help distinguish Delancey Street from other parts of the Lower East Side. In any other neighborhood, this might be a hindrance worthy of help from Sean Basinski’s organization, the Street Vendor Project, but here, Vrena is just a part of the larger Spanish-speaking community. And when you purchase a cup of his flavored ice, you feel more a member of this Lower East Side as well.

first week of october on the LES

This week’s headlines reflected the changing vibe of the Lower East Side. Hundreds of years ago, the predominantly Jewish neighborhood would have been bustling with Rosh Hashanah preparations. Today, synagogues struggle to stay alive among the trendy bars and restaurants. This New Year, Community Synagogue on East Sixth Street has recruited the help of one Rabbi to restore its congregation to its previous numbers. Read more about it here.

Change is also apparent as ever on Orchard Street. The 18-story Thompson Lower East Side hotel is going up at 183 Orchard St. Rooms are set to start at $395 a night, reflecting the neighborhood’s touristy turn. The man responsible for this hotel, Sion Misrahi, has had a large hand in the overall transformation of the neighborhood, from historical to hip, a change that has received flack from locals. Whether they like it or not though, Thompson Lower East Side is expected to open this spring.

Another relatively new establishment has run into trouble this week. Community Board 3, which has jurisdiction over the Lower East Side, has denied The Box’s request for a liquor license due to noise complaints. The Box, a theater and dining establishment famous for its risqué burlesque shows, opened less than two years ago at 189 Chrystie St. The denied liquor license isn’t the only recent bad news for owners Simon Hammerstein, Richard Kimmel and Randy Weiner. The dinner theater is also under scrutiny for alleged inhumane treatment of employees and performers, two of which posted their complaints on their Myspace page after quitting in July.

The Lower East Side has also been seeing an influx of art galleries, giving the area a greater SoHo-esque vibe. The neighborhood was actually named the Best Arts Community by Time Out New York magazine in the September 18-24 issue. This week, there are a few exhibits in their last days.

At the New Museum of Contemporary Art on the Bowery “After Nature” is on view. The exhibit closes on Oct. 5. This Saturday at the New Museum Target First Saturdays for Families presents “Six Degrees,” an exhibit expired by the Bowery itself, free of charge for families with children ages 5 to 15.

“Creswell Crags” is a showcase of 10 different young artists at the Lisa Cooley gallery at 34 Orchard St. and closes Oct. 5. Ending the same day is “Monsters,” a showcase by 13 different artists on display at the Rental Gallery at 120 E. Broadway at Allen Street.

After enjoying some of the visual arts that the neighborhood has to offer, you can satisfy your longing for the auditory arts at any one of the number of musical venues scattered throughout the Lower East Side. It is difficult to narrow down the multitude of artists performing in the coming weeks, and listing all of them here, would be unreasonable so here are a couple that both perform in the neighborhood and embody its indie vibe.

On Friday, at the Cake Shop at 152 Ludlow St., Jad Fair, an underground artist and musician, will be performing to a backdrop of his paper-cut artwork that has been on display all of September.

The following Friday, Oct. 10, the Bowery Ballroom located at 6 Delancey St. will be hosting Langhorne Slim. Though a native of Philadelphia, he perfected his folk-rock sound by frequenting open mic nights on the Lower East Side.

I’d venture downtown this weekend and next, while the Lower East Side’s designation as an arts community still sticks. Before you know it, luxury condominiums and boutique hotels could begin replacing the galleries and music halls too.

a neighborhood overview

Bordered by Chinatown and Little Italy, the Lower East Side has been a haven for diverse immigrant groups for generations. During the Irish potato famine, Irish immigrants flocked to the neighborhood. After the 1860s German immigrants began moving to the area, so much so that the neighborhood became known as Little Germany, or Kleindeutschland.

The group that has perhaps had the most influence on the Lower East Side is the Eastern European Jews that moved to New York beginning in the mid 1880s. Previous immigrant groups moved north but the Jews stuck around, leaving their mark, defining the character of the neighborhood. The tenements, the storefront synagogues along Schtiebel Row on East Broadway and the many Jewish delis still stand as a reminder of the neighborhood’s past.

In 2000, 35 percent of LES residents were foreign born. Today, the main demographics are Hispanic, partially due to a large influx of Puerto Ricans in the 1950s, and Chinese, with Chinatown lying just to the west of the neighborhood.

Longtime residents living in affordable housing are beginning to feel the threat of eviction as more people become willing to pay sky-rocketing prices to live in the changing area. A transition that I doubt any former immigrant could have predicted.

Now a destination for shoppers, the LES was marketed as a bargain district beginning in 1992 to attract people to the area. The signs announcing it as such are still there though shoppers are more apt to make a trip down to the neighborhood for the vintage stores and boutiques featuring independent designers than to bargain hunt. Some of the same people that frequent the shopping scene return at night for the bars, clubs and music venues like The Slipper Room, Arlene’s Grocery and the Bowery Ballroom.

Tourists like the LES too. The Lower East Side Tenement Museum, The University Settlement and the Henry Street Settlement are just a few of the historical landmarks in the area. Katz’s Delicatessen on East Houston and Ludlow has also become a major tourist destination.

Despite the touristy turn the neighborhood has taken recently, the character of the Lower East Side is alive with memories of the various immigrant groups that have called it home. Like New York City as a whole, it is a continually shifting blend of the historic and the trendy. Hopefully, I can keep up.

the nabe

stepping through the gateway- about me and the neighborhood

The Lower East Side, for me, encompasses some of the best aspects of New York City. It is a center of city history, and has more recently become a destination for nightlife and shopping. I hope to cover it all—the cultural, the trendy, and the conflict between the two.

The Lower East Side is my beat for this semester, forcing me to explore it more than I ever would have otherwise. In order to follow the area closely, I have been assigned to create this blog. Here, I plan to chronicle the news and events that occur this semester, and if I like the whole blogging thing, maybe those that happen after the semester closes.

Although I have only spent a short amount of time in the area so far, I have already made a mental list of places I want to go to eat, shop, and gallivant. When I scrounge together the funds (if ever) I will revamp my wardrobe in vintage LES. style at Frock on Orchard Street and Marmalade on Ludlow Street. I will then wear out my new duds while traversing the music scene. Arlene’s Grocery, the Rockwood Music Hall, the Bowery Ballroom, and the Cake Shop are just a sampling of venues I hope to attend within the coming months.

Being a native of Philadelphia, the nation’s first capital, I also want to learn more about the history of one of the city’s first neighborhoods. I grew up appreciating the historical buildings of Philadelphia for all the defining moments that took place within them. I wouldn’t want any of the Lower East Side’s rich cultural past to disappear and so am very interested in the ongoing efforts to preserve historic buildings and curb commercialization.

My senior year of high school, I decided that I wouldn’t be happy living anywhere but New York City, because of many of the same traits that give the Lower East Side its character. I came to NYU where I am now a sophomore majoring in journalism and French. I have loved almost every minute of it thus far.

I have written for the Washington Square News, NYU's student newspaper. Aside from a brief internship contributing to The Inside Scoop on seekingdesigners.com, I am just breaking into the blogging world. Hopefully, I grow to like it as much as the neighborhood I’m covering.