Late on this but Jeremiah’s Vanishing New York has a listing of the NYC spots that closed in 2012.

Less talking more looking.

Painting by Matt Taylor (via This Isn’t Happiness)

No words just a picture of the city.

[Painting by Jamey Christoph]

Humans of New York is on my Tumblr feed so I’m aware of their work, which is almost always cool. Last night, I see this picture and I stop cold because…it’s my cousin Loo from Brooklyn.

“She picks out her clothes all by herself.”

Go figure.

Seen on Sixth Avenue on New Year’s Eve day.

From the always excellent site Eye Heart New York.

Dig this New Yorker “Talk of the Town” item (May 1, 1943) by Joseph Mitchell.

It’s a perfect miniature of his work–a poem, really–his book of revelations:

An air-raid warden we know, a young woman who holds down the desk in her sector headquarters in Greenwich Village twice a week from nine to midnight, is occasionally visited by the policeman on the beat. This policeman, who is elderly and talkative, dropped in the other night, sat down, grunted, placed his cap and nightstick on the desk, and said, “I’m a man that believes in looking ahead, and I been walking around tonight thinking over the biggest police problem this great city will ever have; namely, the day the war ends. I got it all figured out. I know exactly what’ll happen. Half an hour after the news gets out there won’t be a thing left in the saloons but the bare walls. Then the people will tear down the doors on the liquor stores and take what they want, a bottle of this, a bottle of that. Then they’ll go to work on the breweries; they’ll be swimming in the vats. Old ladies will be howling drunk that day. Preachers won’t even bother to drink in secret; they’ll be climbing lampposts and quoting the Bible on the way up. And some young fellow will trot up to the Central Park Zoo and break the locks. The elephants will be marching down Fifth Avenue, and the lions and the tigers, two by two; we’ll be six weeks getting the monkeys out of the trees. And they’ll ring all the church bells until they crack; they’ll jerk the bells right out of the steeples. And you know that big sireen in Rockefeller Center; somebody will get hold of that, and he won’t be torn loose until they shoot him loose. And they’ll unscrew the hydrants all over town; the water will be knee-deep. And people will be running around with their shoes off, wading in the water and singing songs. I can see the whole scene. And the ferryboat captains will give one toot on their whistles and run the ferryboats right up on dry land, and the bus drivers will run the buses right into the water. And the passengers will take charge of the subway trains, and they’ll run them right up into the open air. You’ll hear a racket and a roar, and you’ll look around, and here’ll come a subway train shooting right through the pavement. And husbands will be so happy they’ll beat their wives, and wives will beat their husbands, and the tellers in banks will gang up and beat the bank presidents, and and the ordinary citizens will tear down big buildings just so they’ll have some bricks to throw.” The policeman laughed and slapped his knee. “What a day of rejoicing!” he said. “What a police problem! I hope to God I live to see it!”

You know what’s better than leaving town for the holidays?

Staying put.

[Photo Credit:  Luke Bhothipiti]

From Jeremiah’s Vanishing New York come links to two piece about the stacks at the New York Public Library. The news is troubling.

Wall Street Journal; NY Public Library.

Here’s more from the Times.

[Photo Credit: Karen Johnson]

Give thanks because our friend Bags is capturing New York in a beautiful way these days…

… and nights.

Santacon Silliness via Gothamist.

Picture by Bags.

The classic Upper West Side revival house. Used to feel like sitting in the mouth of a whale, all the blood rushing to the back of your head.

This would have been a good double feature to catch, though, huh?

[Photo Credit: Old New York]

Crosstown Traffic.

Seen on Fifth Avenue yesterday afternoon. Had just enough time to snap a couple of pictures (though not a good one).

More Sandy photos from Eye Heart New York–a terrific site.

I had a cousin who visited New York when he was a teenager and was determined to win at three card monty. I didn’t understand. Those were games you just couldn’t win. And even if you did win you’d get jumped rounding the corner so what was the pernt?

He lost, of course, and then played again. Lost again.

Don’t see those games around too much anymore.

Drawing by Will Eisner.

Over at Narratively/NYC, check out this story by Shamanth Rao:

Lloyd Ultan does not use email. He doesn’t own a cellphone. He doesn’t eat in restaurants, drive a car, or even have a driver’s license, for that matter. “I have the longest chauffeur-driven limousine on the highway: it’s called the bus!“ he says with a roaring laugh.

Truth be told, Ultan would have little use for a vehicle, as he rarely leaves the borough where he has lived for all of his seven-and-a-half decades. Ultan is an author, researcher, and the Borough Historian of the Bronx, an official position appointed by the Borough President, and one he has held since 1996.

“By state law, I am paid a six-figure salary,” Ultan says. “Unfortunately, by the same state law, all six figures are zero!” he adds, erupting into another fit of laughter. In each of the five boroughs, the post of official historian is an unpaid but highly respected position. Instead, Ultan pays his bills by teaching and writing books.

[Photo Credit: Luisa Conlon]

A NYM from The Sartorialist.

This was my father’s favorite midtown delicatessen. And now, the Stage Deli has closed. According to the New York Times:

Paul Zolenge, who owned the Stage Deli with Steve Auerbach, said the closing was “devastating, the end of an era, something I never thought would happen.”

Mr. Zolenge, who became a co-owner in 1986, blamed the sagging economy, a spiraling rent and a forthcoming rent increase expected when his lease at 834 Seventh Avenue ends in a few months. “It’s not a great season for Broadway, either,” he said.

“After the shows would break, we would see a lot of Playbills walking in,” he said of his post-theater customers. “And that, well — it had declined.”

In the full-fat firmament of Midtown, revered old-timers have been keeling over one by one. Two blocks to the south on 52nd Street, Gallagher’s, the 85-year-old steakhouse, a Runyonesque shrine to show business pillars and prizefighters, filed a closing notice in October pending purchase by the restaurateur Dean Poll. In June, the 30-year-old steakhouse Ben Benson’s, also on 52nd Street, shuttered when its landlord would not renew the lease. And in November, Sarge’s Delicatessen on Third Avenue near East 37th Street was ravaged by a blaze battled by 150 firefighters.

The news about the Stage Deli brought agita to its peers. “We’re sorry to hear they closed — all of us are definitely becoming dinosaurs,” said Conrad Strohl, owner of the Edison Cafe, in the Edison Hotel on West 47th Street — nicknamed the “Polish Tearoom” by its habitués. “Theater prices are getting higher, and for many, eating out is a luxury, even though we’re reasonably priced,” Mr. Strohl said. “We’re getting nervous.”

Oy and Veh.

[Featured Image Via The Jewish Daily Forward]

Via Kottke, here’s a little Woody gem.

New biography on Saul Steinberg.