It’s all of six and no one has bothered to post this, so here’s my bit of service blogging and news breaking. The Synagogue on Rivington Street — directly opposite Teany — has partially collapsed. Or so said a number of standers-by.
I was leaving Alias (which has an excellent brunch, a fact that seems to be consistently lost on the hordes of people waiting eons at Clinton Street Baking), and considered getting some baked goods at the hipster cupcake palace (or, at the very least, to try and ingratiate myself into the hottest apartment scene since Felix left 203) when I noticed a couple NYPD Emergency Service trucks parked on Essex. When the Emergency Service people show up, it’s usually worth the trip, particularly in this neighborhood. Back in the day they usually signaled some type of East Village-y social unrest. Given the current economic and political climate these days, I thought perhaps there would be an anti-noise demonstration (which is a bit of an oxymoron, I know), or perhaps someone had gone the direct action route and firebombed Pianos. First Prada, now this. Could the weekend be rougher for hyper-obvious downtown identity? Walking over there revealed what seemed to be every vehicle the FDNY owns. They had a bus. Who knew they had a bus?
The center of activity was Ludlow and Rivington, which likely sent all those new parent hipsters into paroxysms of anger, given that 4PM on a Sunday is probably the only time they get some quiet. Fire trucks in every direction, and camera phones pointed every which way (the only D70 spotted was in the possession of a guy wearing a Prada knitted cap, who must have wanted to publicly declare his grief). So there will be plenty of photos tomorrow (UPDATE: or, today — to be entirely meta, I am in this photo).
Emergencies are always interesting because crowd control seems to be lackadaisical, when it really is just really difficult. Unless there are meteors crashing into Ludlow Street (and wouldn’t that be sweet?), no one wants to be responsible for wholesale evacuation that gets probably forty business owners screaming (people were still eating at Paul’s Boutique and ‘inoteca), to say nothing of bringing down the ire of Moby. So there were fireman going every which way. I do believe the owners were being interviewed by the Wubbie just as I walked up. That’s about all I got for detail. Concerns about further collapse were being talked about here and there, and some people even brought chairs into the street. It was, well, a little festive. No one seemed to be in direct danger, we were all half hoping for a little demolition porn, and the firemen were exuding really top notch style performance. Having watched such elaborate rituals as training the fresh fish how to properly wash the fire truck or, far more importantly, how to back into a fire house, I really appreciate the loving, long-term effort that must go into helmet accessorizing. I’m not saying I wouldn’t do the exact same thing, and today was a fine time to observe it all, since there was plenty of standing around and beard pulling, with very little evident danger.
But building collapses aren’t real exciting events — the initial moments, yes, but a turn of the century post and beam, mostly brick structure doesn’t go down all that easy. The front facade looked pretty solid when I left for my confectionery. I do hope they will be able to forestall any further damage. The presence of LES Synagogues is an interesting social and architectural characteristic of the area. Many of them aren’t that compelling visually, but they are an interesting building type, the large congregation space the only thing that interrupts what is blocks of tenements and current and former school buildings.
The closest this blog gets to breaking news.
It’s all of six and no one has bothered to post this, so here’s my bit of service blogging and news breaking. The Synagogue on Rivington Street — directly opposite Teany — has partially collapsed. Or so said a number of standers-by.
I was leaving Alias (which has an excellent brunch, a fact that seems to be consistently lost on the hordes of people waiting eons at Clinton Street Baking), and considered getting some baked goods at the hipster cupcake palace (or, at the very least, to try and ingratiate myself into the hottest apartment scene since Felix left 203) when I noticed a couple NYPD Emergency Service trucks parked on Essex. When the Emergency Service people show up, it’s usually worth the trip, particularly in this neighborhood. Back in the day they usually signaled some type of East Village-y social unrest. Given the current economic and political climate these days, I thought perhaps there would be an anti-noise demonstration (which is a bit of an oxymoron, I know), or perhaps someone had gone the direct action route and firebombed Pianos. First Prada, now this. Could the weekend be rougher for hyper-obvious downtown identity? Walking over there revealed what seemed to be every vehicle the FDNY owns. They had a bus. Who knew they had a bus?
The center of activity was Ludlow and Rivington, which likely sent all those new parent hipsters into paroxysms of anger, given that 4PM on a Sunday is probably the only time they get some quiet. Fire trucks in every direction, and camera phones pointed every which way (the only D70 spotted was in the possession of a guy wearing a Prada knitted cap, who must have wanted to publicly declare his grief). So there will be plenty of photos tomorrow (UPDATE: or, today — to be entirely meta, I am in this photo).
Emergencies are always interesting because crowd control seems to be lackadaisical, when it really is just really difficult. Unless there are meteors crashing into Ludlow Street (and wouldn’t that be sweet?), no one wants to be responsible for wholesale evacuation that gets probably forty business owners screaming (people were still eating at Paul’s Boutique and ‘inoteca), to say nothing of bringing down the ire of Moby. So there were fireman going every which way. I do believe the owners were being interviewed by the Wubbie just as I walked up. That’s about all I got for detail. Concerns about further collapse were being talked about here and there, and some people even brought chairs into the street. It was, well, a little festive. No one seemed to be in direct danger, we were all half hoping for a little demolition porn, and the firemen were exuding really top notch style performance. Having watched such elaborate rituals as training the fresh fish how to properly wash the fire truck or, far more importantly, how to back into a fire house, I really appreciate the loving, long-term effort that must go into helmet accessorizing. I’m not saying I wouldn’t do the exact same thing, and today was a fine time to observe it all, since there was plenty of standing around and beard pulling, with very little evident danger.
But building collapses aren’t real exciting events — the initial moments, yes, but a turn of the century post and beam, mostly brick structure doesn’t go down all that easy. The front facade looked pretty solid when I left for my confectionery. I do hope they will be able to forestall any further damage. The presence of LES Synagogues is an interesting social and architectural characteristic of the area. Many of them aren’t that compelling visually, but they are an interesting building type, the large congregation space the only thing that interrupts what is blocks of tenements and current and former school buildings.
UPDATE: Gothamist does five more minutes of research than me.