Duly Noted
Costa del Sol is no mas. A few more exterior shots await after the jump. (Rolando Pujol)
* A batch of sad closings: After 50 years, Chez Brigitte is no more on Greenwich Avenue in the Village. And Costa Del Sol has set in Hell's Kitchen. We'd been to Costa Del Sol in the mid 1990s and enjoyed a good meal; now, we'll definitely check out the owner's other, still extant place, Spanish Taverna on West 38th Street. Costa's demise was coming for a while ... this photo was taken in February, with the lease sign plastered on the facade even though the restaurant was still in business. We had meant to stop by one last time and blog about its endangered status. Happily, Chez Napoleon is alive and well next door, and Lost City paid a visit.
* Don't even think of sitting on Carrie Bradshaw's stoop. The owners of the West Village home where the fictional sex-columnist-who-destroyed-New-York lived have taken the stoop back from the shutterbug masses. [Jeremiah's Vanishing New York and EV Grieve]
* New York magazine was mourning the loss of the Lower East Side as early as May 28, 1984. [EV Grieve]
* The East Village Other was a short-lived but scrappy alternative paper whose history mirrors the hippie era. Check out the cool cover art by R. Crumb. [Ephemeral New York]
* The steps at the Met: Don't even think of sitting there. Well, kind of, and there's a good reason. [City Room]
* Renaming the Triborough Bridge for Robert F. Kennedy is something we just can't support. To be sure, we do not object to honoring the memory of RFK, but picking the Triborough, an iconic structure with an authentic New York name, seems ridiculous. Just leave it be. We'd say that most New Yorkers will keep calling it the Triborough regardless, but then again, we've gotten around to calling the Interborough Parkway by its new name, the Jackie Robinson, thanks to 1010 WINS traffic reports. [Gothamist]
* Tragic: An 1873 church in College Point was gutted in a blaze. [Queens Crap]
* The New York Times installs "repellent" to keep the human flies away. That repellent involves plywood. Oh, Renzo Piano isn't going to like this at his sleek and eminently scalable tower. [Curbed]
* Learn about Father Duffy, the Fighting 69th chaplain and your companion in discounted Broadway ticket buying starting June 20. [Curbed]
* A view seen by few since the 1960s: the High Bridge pedestrian overpass. It's coming back by 2011, we are told. [Ephemeral New York]
* Sure, it's hot, but at least something called The West Indian Monster isn't burying our barrier islands. [Gowanus Lounge]
* This time of year is great for organized house tours and neighborhood walks. We enjoyed a visit to the gardens of Jackson Heights yesterday, which we will blog later. Next week, a tour of Weeksville, the historic African American community, seems well worth undertaking. [Gowanus Lounge]
-- Rolando Pujol
But next door, Chez Napoleon is still going ...
