Wednesday, December 17, 2014

Cafe Edison - Another Victim Falls


At first, I didn't know if I've ever been there, but I realized that, yes, quite a few times in the past. Whatever the case, the story is all too familiar nowadays. The money quote:

"We fought hard, but the forces of greed are too strong in this city, and our small businesses are completely unprotected. The soul of New York, once again, is being destroyed, piece by piece."

http://vanishingnewyork.blogspot.com/2014/12/cafe-edison-is-closing.html

23 comments:

Anonymous said...

I went to the first mob lunch to support the CafĂ© Edison. As Jeremiah Moss constantly points out, we need small business protection, especially for landmarks such as this. I love when the RE Industry Trolls come out and say if only RS laws were repealed, there would be tons of affordable housing built in NYC. Well, having no regulations in the commercial real estate world, that’s really working out well for small businesses, isn’t it. For commercial rents, as leases expire, the rent is quintupled. There is no “free market” in the NYC RE world.

“Cuomo’s Moreland Act panel has to unravel the mystery of the luxury tax breaks”

BTW, conveniently disbanded by Cuomo in 3/14.

http://www.nydailynews.com/opinion/murk-article-1.1432305

Anonymous said...

Completely agree 10:38
Spot on correlation

Similarly it is reasonable to suspect foul play in Peter Cooper Village Stuyvesant Town when the same company stole over $10million from Riverton residents.

Anonymous said...

One of my friends who had a thriving little business in the West Village, had to file for bankruptcy soon after Bloomberg took over. The taxes and rents went so high she just couldn't survive. Now her store is a shitty "gourmet" coffee shop - after having changed hands a dozen times since 2003 and all the once-affordable rent stabilized and rent controlled apartments are filled with NYU students. Somehow those landlords found ways of getting rid of the older tenants. Some died, some were just forced out by one method or another. Now the West Village is becoming more and more of a college kid playground.

Anonymous said...

Good read - thanks 10:38 for the article.

Another good read, Penn South still a thriving community, a Towers in the Park design community. While Stuyvesant Town Peter Cooper Village a Towers In The Park community failed by the city. Sad.

http://www.6sqft.com/towers-in-the-park-le-corbusiers-influence-in-nyc/

Anonymous said...

Just heard the same architect who designed the rural Ohio Stuyvesant Oval Strip Mall designed the devoid of character glass hideousness that cuts a dark shadow through Madison Square Park. The once architecturally interesting surrounding neighborhood with the impressive court house and the clock tower, then that desperate Cetra erect tower that is trying too hard for attention.

The impressive court house
daytoninmanhattan.blogspot.com/2010/09/1899-appellate-courthouse-madison.html


And the hideousness

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One_Madison

Thanks John Cetra for ruining the beautiful Tree Park in the Oval for the neon strip mall with matching parking garages.

Anonymous said...

2:37 Bloomberg and the corrupt Quinn / Garodnick / Cuomo trashed the West Village community and turned it over to NYU.

Anonymous said...

I think Capucine's went the same way. Just about an institution around here for forty years. Gone.

Anonymous said...

"I think Capucine's went the same way."

You are correct sir. The city sucks these days, it is a 1% dorm, filled with Wall Street Bros, hipsters, tourists and other assorted A-Holes. PCVST and the EV are Murray Hill South.

http://vanishingnewyork.blogspot.com/2013/03/capucines-restaurant.html


Anonymous said...

Christie, Cuomo, Langone, Speyer plotting the way to the national stage.....

http://cityandstateny.com/2/politics/partners-in-power-the-unlikely-alliance-of-andrew-cuomo-and-chris-christie.html#.VJTY4eaYKA

Anonymous said...

CONGRATS PENN SOUTH AFFORDABLE HOUSING

http://www.nysenate.gov/press-release/50-more-years-housing-affordability-penn-south-hoylman-gottfried-bill-signed-governor-

Anonymous said...

http://cb4ch.blogspot.com/

They could have saved this community too but chose not to...
sad for us
but
happy for penn south

Anonymous said...

was it a one or the other? pick one to save and one to give to langone and verizon?
right move for penn south
wrong move betraying everyone here in pcvst

Anonymous said...


We need to take back our NYC starting with PCVST!

A map of the Speyer Langone path to owning the East Side of NYC

https://files.nyu.edu/kwh228/public/route_e.html

Some of the new construction planned

http://www.med.nyu.edu/about-us/who-we-are/our-future

Buy Albany towards republican control to achieve Tishman Speyer Langone NYC

http://www.forbes.com/sites/andreanavarro/2014/03/26/top-billionaire-political-donors-in-new-york/

Trade - let the middle class keep their west side chelsea homes at Penn South to look like good guys while evicting 5X as many middle class from the east side in PCV ST for NYU RE.

Even though "granting" the middle class Penn South a pardon from taking their homes does not make you a good guy. They, we all, have a right to sanctity and security of our homes without harassment, intimidation, overcharges and wrongful evictions.

The Tishman Speyer Langone vision for NYC is pro-billionaire, anti-middle class.

90% eviction of PCV ST is 100% wrong to do to this middle class working class community of citizens, of human beings.

Putting politics before People

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/alan-singer/in-politics-before-people_b_5926538.html

When they succeed in wiping out the middle class from PCV ST they will take their show nationally to the White House and do this to the whole country.

We cannot let the Speyers and Langones do to the country what they did to NYC and this community. We need to speak up and fight back and protect our homes!

The middle class has enough debt of its own. The Tishman debt is not ours. The land grab and home stealing is as bad as NYC being the world's go to place for money laundering.

Corruption in Albany is stealing our NYC small businesses and working class homes for billionaires row from 30th and First cutting through PCV ST to the West Village.

We need to take back our NYC starting with PCVST!

Anonymous said...

11:26 and 10:47 you are spot on and what we need to do is say FU in a big, loud, national way!

Anonymous said...

Geez, waiting around and chirping like sheep while another corporate pirate gobbles us up is not the way to go

Anonymous said...

"11:26 and 10:47 you are spot on and what we need to do is say FU in a big, loud, national way!"

I am all in favor of that, but I don't know how we go about doing it.

Anonymous said...

No heat 3:35 12/20/2014 reported - 628 E 20.

Anonymous said...

Yelp --- Post photos of your building on the Yelp site and especially if there is dog crap and worse inside.

I for one am taking a photo of the ridiculously high fees on our latest rent statement with added McI charges and posting THAT on Yelp for all to see that the price you are told at lease signing -- ours, $3370 is not at all the price they bill you monthly. Aholes. Thieves.

Anonymous said...

Great idea 6:58!

Anonymous said...

Good background on the overused vague blanket government term "Affordable Housing" and who it helps.

http://welcometocup.org/file_columns/0000/0011/cup-fullbook.pdf

Anonymous said...

The who is who of the upper east side rent stabilized elite and the RE benefiting from the gifting of rent stabilized apartments to government officials all while decreasing rent stabilized apartments for the working class.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/21/nyregion/21building.html

Anonymous said...

Worked all nighter. Came home. 42 degrees outside. colder inside. all pipes are cold and off. no heat. luxury living at peter cooper village.

Anonymous said...

Why are we, the taxpayers, paying for Bonehead Bill's wife to have TWO chiefs of staff at a combined salary of almost $4k? We didn't elect her. That money would go a long way to improving the lives of some New Yorkers who don't have a pot to piss in.

This guy has done fuck-all in a year in office!
Where does this charlatan get off?

The sooner his one term (and Garodnick's last term) is over, the better.