MetaChat - Chapter One. He adored New York City. He idolized it all out of proportion.

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13 March 2006

Chapter One. He adored New York City. He idolized it all out of proportion. →[More:]NYC is big, actually physically big, big in terms of population, big in terms of economic and cultural impact. Furthermore, it takes up a whole lot of what I'll call 'psychic real-estate'. What I mean by that is that so much of the substance of our shared culture is there. The few times I've visited, I've been mildly shocked to see that, say, Broadway is an actual physical street, you know, with people and gum and spit and newspaper boxes. Or you look up and hey, that's The Empire State Building.

Anyway, sorry, got off on a bit of a tangent there.

I was delighted to see on AxeMe that in New York, there's a store that just sells bones and suchlike. I mean it makes sense, when you have that many people, at that kind of density, all kinds of things are suddenly economically viable that wouldn't be elsewhere.

So, New Yorkers, tell me something amazing about your city. Do you know of a store that just sells different kinds of toothpicks and is open 24 hrs? A butcher that just sells, I dunno, llama?

post by: Capn at: 11:07 | 35 comments

That place is right down the street from where I work, dude.

I know many great places in NYC, but most of them are bars or record stores.

posted by jonmc 13 March | 11:11

I'm not, technically, a New Yorker, but The Strand is pretty darn amazing. It's always the first place I go when I go to NYC, as soon as I drop my luggage off in my hotel room.

posted by sisterhavana 13 March | 11:17

The Evolution store is my one must sees when I go into the city\visit NY. I love that place!

posted by jelly 13 March | 11:20

I have an um... holy balls 8! 8 year old black The Strand t-shirt. It is threadbare and holey and I love it so.

posted by Capn 13 March | 11:21

The best record store is Bleecker Bob's. Much deeper selection than Other Music or Kim's but minus all the attitude. My favorite bar is Jeremy's Ale House on Front Street where they serve beer in quart styrofoam cups and give you huge plates of calimari, fried clams and shrimp dirt cheap, and the crowd includes everyone from dockworkers to stockbrokers.

posted by jonmc 13 March | 11:23

I know a bunch of amazing stuff about new york, but most of it has to do with people. I actually find the cool store (especially used bookstores, the Strand notwithstanding) quotient to be very low in New York as compared to other places. What with the recent good weather, I'm on the hunt for some bugged out butcher shops to go to.
There is a place in Astoria I need to hit up for lamb chops.

Actually if I could complain about the Strand (which I do like a bunch) you have to be a cast prick to work there in my experience, or perhaps working there makes you into a prick.

posted by Divine_Wino 13 March | 11:35

cast iron prick, evun!

posted by Divine_Wino 13 March | 11:36

All the dockbrokers and stockworkers hang out on Staten Island.

You can go to a place that really only has pastrami (even though they've got other stuff on the menu and their latkes are killer), and even though jonmc and everybody else seems to like Katz's on Houston at Ludlow.

I live out by the ornamental ironworks in LIC (right across the East River from the UN). Back down on the Lower East Side, there're so many specialty shops yer head would spin. Empanadas, Jewish religious items, pickles, storefront Joss parlors, grilled cheese (don't bother; the one you make at home is good enough), bialies (Kossar's on Grand at Essex); the list goes on.

There also seems to be a spot that churns out pretensions, and another very popular place where you take your new pretensions and find hipsters to match.

I hate the Strand for anything but pointless browsing. The Strand is a terrific place for pointless browsing, though.

posted by Hugh Janus 13 March | 11:44

Here I got a good story about a used bookstore in Carroll Gardens.

There is this crazy, dusty used bookstore in Carroll Gardens, the dude who owns it has a crazy gnarled up hand and smokes Moore cigarettes and takes month long vacations and he's cranky as hell. Great store. I was in there one time and this pretty lifestyle hippie girl walks in with the long flowing skirt and the beads and the purse made out of hemp and the whole deal and she marches up to the old man at the counter and says [kinda high pitched dreamy hippie tofu loaf voice] "Hi, do you have that book about the Buddha, the one called... uh... Sidhartha? I can't find it, who is it by?"

and the old man kinda pops his eyes out of his head and waves his brown cigarette around and then shouts [sorta of a super sterotypical New York old school Brooklyn Jewish dude voice, all loud and the words all run together] "Sidhartha? By Herman Hesse? You call yourself a hippie? Get out of my store!"

I fucking died laughing.

posted by Divine_Wino 13 March | 11:45

Little Orphan "And" at 11:44, Hugh; try not to leave conjunctions lying all over the place next time.

posted by Hugh Janus 13 March | 11:55

Oh yeah. House Of Oldies on Carmine Street.(me and rob the cop rayin respeks here). Dig that, 'No Tapes, No CD's sign in the window. Paradise for the old school vinylhead. You could walk in there and ask for Norman & the Snotrags 'Vap-O-Rub Blues,' and they'd look you right in the face and say 'mono or stereo?'

That place is a taste of a New York that's fading away while a bunch of newly graduated Art History majors from Grosse Point remake it in their own image.
/rant

posted by jonmc 13 March | 11:56

bialies (Kossar's on Grand at Essex);

right next door to Kossar's is this joint, with the best donuts in. the. world.

posted by jonmc 13 March | 12:11

jonmc says the shirt he's wearing features is the best hot dog joint in the tri-state area, but I vote for Crif Dogs in the East Village instead. They serve tater tots instead of french fries, have action figures hanging above the register and you can play Pac-Man while you eat your dogs.

While watching was was playing on the TV there, I learned that Hank Williams learned how to write sappy love songs by reading 1950's pulp romance comics.

posted by TrishaLynn 13 March | 12:12

I've been to Crif Dogs, Trish. Once at 3am, and both the countergirls had drawn mustaches on their faces with eyeliner.

The dogs were OK, but these two* joints are the best in the world. Period. I am never wrong when it comes to tubes of meat.

But Gray's Papaya and Papaya King are the best dogs in NYC.

*the t-shirt I'm wearing is from the Merritt, the quintessential small city greasy spoon.

posted by jonmc 13 March | 12:18

Roll up the sleeves, boyo; it's time for a hot dargument.

Just kidding, really. I've been itching to go to Superduperweenie for awhile now. There's some kinda rumored field trip, involving a bookstore and weenies and the holy drunk and Dame, on a back burner somewhere.

But really, the ones in Chicago are better. With all that stuff plus celery salt.

posted by Hugh Janus 13 March | 12:29

Field trip sounds good. I keep hearing about this used bookstore somewhere in CT that's in a barn. Will try and rustle up the name.

posted by TrishaLynn 13 March | 12:33

I LIKE BOOKS!

posted by Divine_Wino 13 March | 12:48

and books like you.

Now, what's your position in the War Of The Frankfurters, hoss?

posted by jonmc 13 March | 12:49

Jon - I challenge your statement that Bleecker Bob's has a depper selection than Other or Kim's. I don't spend a lot of time at BB's (or the West side in general), but from what I've seen, it really depends on what yer looking for.

also:
Sassy's Sliders
Sunny's bar in Red Hook
God I would love to live in Vinegar Hill
go listen to some dub/reggae in this chill store - JammyLand
Chinatown arcade, i assume is still there.

Ask this again at the end of the summer - one of my resolutions is to rediscover this city. I've been taking it for granted for too long.

posted by Hellbient 13 March | 13:24

Jon - I challenge your statement that Bleecker Bob's has a depper selection than Other or Kim's.

Deeper in different directions. And there's a far lower hipster quotient, not to mention way less attitude (although my selections are obscure enough to keep the Kim's kids from giving me any lip) at Bleecker's and at House Of Oldies.

posted by jonmc 13 March | 13:27

The Book Barn in Niantic, CT. I wonder if I can find Jan Smuts' Boer War memoir there. Never good to bet on anything being at a used b-store, tho'.

And hellbient, you prolly know of Etherea (Ave. A b/t 4th & 5th), nice for similar stuff to what Other Music is nice for (electronica, indie, offshoots). Plus the staff is helpful and they'll play anything you want over the store soundsystem, usually.

posted by Hugh Janus 13 March | 13:29

There's also that joint on Essex with the sign that simply says 'Records Wanted,' that's a gold mine for old R&B and Funk. So let's just say that Bleecker Bob's, House Of Oldies, and that joint win for Old School Record Stores, and Kim's for New School, if they lose some of the attitude.

posted by jonmc 13 March | 13:33

And, from your Vinegar Hill link, hellbient, I dig the pic of the green Checker Marathon parked in front of the building (for all I know, it is a former cab stripped of its glory and painted green, but there is such a thing as a Marathon that ain't a cab).

And yeah, that Records Wanted place is cool. Used to have a buddy lived up the block by Stanton; that place drops some serious Old School. The big guy who runs the place is the man. 'S like talking to KRS-One or something.

I hate Kim's, though. I'll never go there again.

posted by Hugh Janus 13 March | 13:37

I should say, "Buddy of mine used to live up the block...." He's still my buddy, just lives elsewhere.

posted by Hugh Janus 13 March | 13:39

Man, i've been meaning to check that place on Essex. It does look awesome. I just get so tired of digging, and I already have way too many records anyway.
There is a really fun junk shop in Greenpoint (Manhattan Ave + Huron St.) that has thousands and thousands and thousands of records. Lots of digging, no organization though. Can't remember the name of it. Jon - if you haven't been there already, you'd probably love it.

The attitude at Kim's and Other I just kind of accept now. I have an attitude-free friend at Kim's I always chat up, so that always makes for pleasant trips. I talk to a few of the guys at Other and they're generally pretty cool and always helpful. And between the two, they almost always have what I'm looking for and know what I'm talking about. Plus the video selection at Kim's is Amazing.

That said, "Other Music" by Human Giant. At least they have a sense of humor about it.

posted by Hellbient 13 March | 14:09

oh, speaking of old skool, I just picked up Big Apple Rappin' over the weekend. It's pretty awesome.

posted by Hellbient 13 March | 14:14

you wants old skool? I managed to find some tracks from the Detroit-Memphis Experiment this weekend. Maybe when I get home I'll post 'em.

posted by jonmc 13 March | 14:20

There is this crazy, dusty used bookstore in Carroll Gardens

This one?

≡ Click to see image ≡

posted by Armitage Shanks 13 March | 14:36

That one indeed.

The Community Bookstore, it serves THE COMMUNITY.

posted by Divine_Wino 13 March | 14:39

Who gets the discounts?

posted by Hugh Janus 13 March | 14:41

Heh. It's across the street from me. The top floor windows have been blocked by the same wet cardboard boxes for at least five years. When it rains, the brownstone facing stains different colors depending on how close it is to collapsing.

I stick to the newer piles at the front of the store for the most part. The cigarette smoke helps to dry out the area around the register. The spores seem to get thicker as you go back and I swear you can feel your lungs begin to involuntarily constrict partway through the science fiction section. There might be dead people in automotive repair.

posted by Armitage Shanks 13 March | 14:54

Hey, i used to live a few blocks from you, Armitage, @ Schermerhorn and Court.

posted by Hellbient 13 March | 15:02

Totally drier in the front. If you can handle the swamp and book funk there are some gems in there. Dude doesn't seem to really check prices in the marketplace for the stuff that is further in the back.

posted by Divine_Wino 13 March | 15:26

For an irrelevant reason, I needed an ametrine about an inch long on a pendant.

I found a place called 'Rock Star' on 33rd street or thereabouts that had eleventy-six of every size and shape crystal imaginable, including 24 ametrine pendants, any one of which would have suited my needs.

Substitute any request or irrational desire for the first line; there's a place in Manhattan where you can go have your pick of them.

posted by ikkyu2 13 March | 21:25

God, I was there less than two years, but I miss New York.

posted by stilicho 14 March | 00:46

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