Record-Breaking Rainfall

After yesterday’s Wilma-related rainfall, New York came this close to breaking a record for rainfall in a single month, although there are still a couple of days left in October. Joy. The record, in case you’re interested, came in September 1882 when 16.85 inches rain fell.

Boutiques Are No Match For San Gennaro’s Long Shaft

The Boutiquification of the neighborhood north of Little Italy (snappy abbreviation: “Nolita” — rhymes with “Lolita”!) once threatened that neighborhood’s diversity — if you’ll permit me some chest-thumping wonkery, I believe Jane Jacobs called it the “Self-Destruction of Diversity” (The Death and Life of Great American Cities, Chapter 13). But it seems the neighborhood has, for now at least, withstood what once seemed inevitable:

The first of Manhattan’s microneighborhoods to emerge in the mid-nineties, Nolita saw retail rents double by 1998, from $50 to $100 a square foot, as Italian butchers and hardware gave way almost overnight to tiny, precious boutiques. The place is such shorthand for cool that the eatery on Fox’s Kitchen Confidential is called Nolita.

Then why do more than two dozen storefronts now stand empty in its nine blocks? It’s pretty much always been the case: Nolita turnover is unusually brutal.

Somehow the Williamsburg-ish crowd hanging out in front of Café Habana doesn’t translate into sales of the sort of arty luxury goods the shops are peddling. Theresa Ma, whose skin-care line, SCO, had a storefront on Mulberry Street before decamping to Broadway last year, notes, “People who live in Soho will happily pay $4 for a cup of coffee or buy an expensive face cream like mine.” Not in tenement-filled Nolita. “Most buildings are falling apart, with regular water and toilet leaks from the apartments above,” [onetime boutiquist Hugh] Duthie notes.

And then there’s the nabe’s previous claim to fame: September’s spumoni-and-beer-fueled San Gennaro Festival. “It’s crushing,” says Lindsay Cain of Femmegems, a do-it-yourself jewelry lab on Mulberry. “Those two weekends in September are really important — everyone is back from the Hamptons and women are excited to get shopping again. We tried to stay open during the festival our first year, in 2002, and there were horrid sausages and rats outside our door every morning, so now we just close.”

Where Brooklyn Ends . . . Er, Where “New” Brooklyn Ends

Charles Graeber writes in New York Magazine about the L-ification of Brooklyn and finds that it extends to . . . Jefferson Street:

I’ve been walking toward the gentrification line all day, and all day that line seems to have gotten no closer than the horizon.

Now, for instance, walking toward the Jefferson Street L station, I see on the horizon several more of those five-story factory buildings with Manhattan views — the sort of buildings that I watched go condo two years ago in Northside Williamsburg, the sort rented to youthful capacity today down the street at the Morgan L stop. I’m starting to hate these buildings. I’m starting to hate the people with their ironic bangs and ITHACA IS GORGE-OUS and VIRGINIA IS FOR LOVERS T-shirts, the shooter-producer husband and his video-artist wife and their baby, Fido. I’m not even halfway to Canarsie, but I’m done. I can no longer tell whether I’m in the middle of nowhere or on the edge of the next big somewhere. If there is a gentrification line, I’m giving up on finding it.

And then I run into Simon.

Simon is a big man, maybe six two, 250, dressed in thrift-shop clothes: blue jeans, a golf shirt nappy from overwashing, sneakers that are brand-new but not name-brand. His shaved head shows a star-shaped puncture wound; his arms are tweedy with scars. He stops just ahead to fish a hand-rolled smoke out of a box of Newports. When I stop next to him, he simply smiles and nods and exhales a thick cloud of blue smoke from a finger-size joint.

“You just checking out the neighborhood?” Simon says. He inhales, exhales, scratches.

“Yeah, that’s basically it,” I say.

“Checking it out,” Simon says.

“Just seeing what I see,” I say. I tell him about my walk, about following the L-train route away from Manhattan and looking for the line where things change.

. . .

Simon waves his joint toward Jefferson Street. “Look here,” he says. “You got them wide streets so the kids can play. And there’s no drugs—just a little weed, you know. And, I’m not paying rent right now so I don’t know, but most of the people around here, they Dominican, they work in the factories. Keep ’em close, the owners like to keep ’em close, word.” He laughs, getting excited. “And you know they ain’t getting paid much, so these places gotta be cheap!”

That’s when it hits me: I’m finally here. Simon’s gesture toward Jefferson takes in brownfields, industrial sprawl, derelict yards, and buildings that contain real working factories rather than raw loft space. There are no baby stores, soy products, or 24-hour delis. There is nothing to buy, no apartments not to afford. There are no Manhattan-bound commuters. There isn’t an ITHACA IS GORGE-OUS T-shirt in sight. Even Simon himself defines the line, which is exactly why the state has placed him right on top of it.

All day, I’ve been searching for the cliff edge of gentrification, and Simon has just casually pointed it out with a burning joint.

Bonus Points: Handy Craig’s List Shortcut.

That Man Is From Missouri . . . You’ll Have To Show Him

The executive who (allegedly!) blew the equivalent of Moldova‘s (legal) yearly exports at a Manhattan strip club has been placed on unpaid leave by his empolyer while they investigate the charges he incurred:

The St. Louis CEO who allegedly ran up a bill of nearly a quarter-million dollars at Scores may have some new trouble paying it off — his company put him on unpaid leave yesterday as it investigates.
Robert McCormick’s problems began in October 2003, when he took at least three business acquaintances to the East Side topless bar.

American Express says he charged a whopping $241,000 worth of wine, women and lap dances on his corporate credit card.

The big spender from the “Show Me State” insisted his bill was inflated. He claimed he spent a mere $20,000 — and refused to pay a penny more.

What does it say about the state of affairs in this city when a yobbo tries to argue that $20,000 is a reasonable amount to spend in a strip club?

Say No To Diversions!

If it seemed there were more subway diversions than normal last weekend, it was not your imagination:

“I can’t get a break,” Robert Boone muttered angrily on Saturday as the announcement came over the loudspeaker and he learned he was on the wrong subway train. When Johnie Mae Simmons saw that her train, usually an express, was making local stops, she let out a loud sigh. And when Ellen P. Winn was asked to describe her weekend travel routine, she declared, “It’s a nightmare.”

Weekend service diversions – in which trains are rerouted, schedules altered and riders befuddled, all because of construction or repair work – have become a pervasive element of the subway-riding experience. Over the weekend, all 19 regular lines had at least one departure from their regular service pattern. (There are a total of 26 lines. The three shuttles had no diversions, and the B, V, W and Z trains do not run on weekends.)

But it’s because it’s a 24-hour-a-day system, blah, blah, blah:

In most other transit systems, track and signal maintenance occurs at night, but in New York City, where the system never fully shuts down, construction projects and repair work can be performed only on weekends, transit officials say. Hence the diversions.

But even those riders who profess to understand why the diversions are necessary gnash their teeth with impatience. To gauge how the weekend service changes affect riders, a reporter picked a simple route – from 135th Street and Malcolm X Boulevard in Harlem to President Street and Nostrand Avenue in Crown Heights, Brooklyn – and had arrived at the point of origin at 10 a.m. on two consecutive days, Friday and Saturday.

On Friday, the trip took 54 minutes, on the No. 2 express train. On Saturday, the trip required another half-hour – and two additional trains.

< zagatreading>:

Weekends become a pain in the ass for everyone. “I’m late for class,” some say as their 5 train circles back up the east side of Manhattan. Others “go into Manhattan less because it’s such a pain,” which for those “with an active social life” presents a problem. In the end there is not much one can do beyond “leaving extra early” for these “out of control” diversions: “There’s no choice.” And, what’s more, in the end, “Nothing ever seems fixed.”

< /zagatreading>

(As a parenthetical — this is how we geek out — the indispensible Sewell Chan explains what’s going on when the 2 is running on the 5 and vice versa: “On weekends, the Nos. 2 and 5 trains in Manhattan essentially become circular lines. The No. 5 travels clockwise, down the East Side (its normal route) and up the West Side (acting as the No. 2). The No. 2 travels counterclockwise, down the West Side (as it usually does) and up the East Side (replacing the No. 5). Got it?” Got it, SC . . . thanks!)

But down to business — the Times does the math, and it’s not pretty:

An analysis by The New York Times shows that there have been about 760 service changes, including station closings, so far this year, and reveals that no weekend has been immune. The least troublesome weekend was March 12-13, which had two diversions scheduled. The most inconvenient was Oct. 8-9, when 33 diversions were scheduled. The N line had experienced the most diversions – at least 72, or nearly 10 percent of the total. It was followed by the D, with 63 diversions.

In nearly 100 instances, riders were instructed to take shuttle buses when their normal trains were canceled.

Sons a bitches!