Got spawn? Peek at the Legends of the Lower East Side coloring book from the Outlaw Art Museum, photographer-owner Clayton Patterson and artists Troy Harris and Orlando Bonilla. It’s a good antidote to those other hate-bred coloring books and a chance to turn your LES nostalgia into something productive, like arguing about who deserves or doesn’t deserve to be in this thing in front of the kiddies. Featuring twenty-four debatable characters, from Jim “Mosaic Man” Powers to Ai Weiwei and on, it will be printed (eventually) and sold (locally) for $12.00 a pop.
Got spawn? Peek at the Legends of the Lower East Side coloring book from the Outlaw Art Museum, photographer-owner Clayton Patterson and artists Troy Harris and Orlando Bonilla. It’s a good antidote to those other hate-bred coloring books and a chance to turn your LES nostalgia into something productive, like arguing about who deserves or doesn’t deserve to be in this thing in front of the kiddies. Featuring twenty-four debatable characters, from Jim “Mosaic Man” Powers to Ai Weiwei and on, it will be printed (eventually) and sold (locally) for $12.00 a pop.
Here’s a nostalgia-inducing short film by French filmmaker Marie Martine, shot in the wild days of the Lower East Side’s artistic happenings and urban decay, with glimpses of Scott Borofsky making street art and clip-board wielding Guerrilla Girls in full ape costume. Read more »
Here’s some “evocative footage” of the LES circa 1967/68, when it was a bit dirtier and a lot more fun. Its a gem of pre-gentrification documentation. Nostalgia wank anyone? Read more »
Last night, legendary hip hop group Smif-N-Wessun (and Pete Rock) held an album release party at Tammany Hall in the LES. When the show ended and crowds poured out onto Orchard Street, the NYPD struck and they struck hard. Read more »
Here’re some randy artworks from the “Pornucopia” excess and porn-themed art show at the Allegra LaViola Gallery. Randy! Yet, it was the relatively tame nude pizza-face and happily-nippled skipping girl in the window display that caused vocal protesting from the adjacent Orthodox community, three visits from the police in the past two weeks and Yeshiva schoolboys banging on the glass. Read more »
Downtown denizens rejoice. You will have one full year to drink, do drugs and vandalize LES fixture Max Fish. Papermag is reporting that owner Uli Rimkus was able to work out a deal with the landlord and won’t be closing at the end of the month after all.
A Chinese grocer in the Asiany section of the Lower East Side made good use of the heavy downfall, sculpting this massively rotund snowman. The ghetto ‘Frosty’ was outfitted with a garbage bag scarf, rotten clementine buttons, and a blackened carrot nose. (Photo: ANIMALNewYork)
While walking through the LES yesterday, I happened upon a woman who was calmly incensed over a parking ticket she was given and rightly so. As you can see, despite being payed up till 7:05PM, she was somehow slapped with a $60 ticket a little before 6:30PM for not displaying the Muni-meter receipt, an outrageous claim since it was sitting pretty on the dashboard of her Mercedes Benz. What could possibly explain the meter maid getting this so wrong? I have an extremely circumstantial theory, but will float it out there anyway: out of state plates.
Did you notice the characterizations made by the media about the Lower East Side in the telling of the Tatum O’Neal crack buying story? From ABC: “A police spokesman said she was seen buying a controlled substance from a man in Manhattan’s Lower East Side, once a crime-infested neighborhood that has become trendy.” The AP went with: “O’Neal’s arrest Sunday on charges of buying cocaine in her gritty-chic downtown Manhattan neighborhood suggests her struggle with addiction may not be over.” So which one best describes the LES: “trendy” or “gritty-chic”?
Not only is the neighborhood screwed, but the crappy and outdated apparel shops in the LES are too. The owners can’t figure out why the throngs of younger people are not interested in their “dusty old samples” and irrelevant inventory, although the lady who can guess women’s bra sizes on a whim is doing just fine. You can read the article or listen and watch the multimedia slideshow instead. |NYT|
Photo: Annie Tritt/New York Times
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