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Chinatown still possesses a shady underbelly not often seen in Bloomberg’s New York City.

Last night, NBC News revealed that the Feds just busted an illegal gambling ring that was headquartered on East Broadway. Indeed, shortly before 6:00 pm, NYPD and federal officials busted down the doors at numbers 35 and 37, seizing approximately $14 million in assets.  According to the report:

The building hosted a group of illegal gambling operators on floors 1, 3, 4 and 6 over at least the last two years, according to law enforcement sources. Games like mahjong, pai gow poker and computer-based slots were offered in nearly half the building’s suites.

Apparently the Chinatown tenement was modified to accommodate the illicit gambling activities, including ground-floor slot machines and rooms dedicated to hosting computer slots. The same building was raided last year, with the NYPD seizing $200,000.

[Photo via]

Hidden in an article about New York City's first million-dollar parking space is the somewhat incredible fact that, up in the apartment building this parking space will be attached to, "the shower water will be pumped full of vitamin C and aloe" for the building's economically distinguished residents. Like the home vodka tap we joked about years ago, this enhanced water supply seems to be further evidence that literally every aspect of the human environment can not only be redesigned, it can be aggressively capitalized upon in its ensuing augmented state. The article also mentions, for instance, that even the building's "lighting patterns and air quality" have been re-designed so as to maximize the quality of residents' sleep, bringing to mind Stalin's "sleep labs," in which aromatherapy and ambient music would have been used to lull stalwart workers of the CCCP back into bed each evening:

At either end of the long buildings were to be situated control booths, where technicians would command instruments to regulate the temperature, humidity, and air pressure, as well as to waft salubrious scents and "rarefied condensed air" through the halls. Nor would sound be left unorganized. Specialists working "according to scientific facts" would transmit from the control center a range of sounds gauged to intensify the process of slumber. The rustle of leaves, the cooing of nightingales, or the soft murmur of waves would instantly relax the most overwrought veteran of the metropolis. Should these fail, the mechanized beds would then begin gently to rock until consciousness was lost.

It doesn't seem far-fetched that New York City buildings will add, to their already existing stock of doormen and cleaning crews, lifestyle technicians working behind the scenes like conductors of a sensory orchestra, recalibrating sounds, scents, and lighting intensity, even dialing up barometric pressure at certain key times of day, for the strangely mummified people living inside. [Image: Konstantin Melnikov's "Sonata of Sleep"]. Specialty mixtures of air—perhaps even air subscriptions—could be piped in through luxury ducts as atmospheric brewmasters toggle dials in the basement, frantically trying to zero-in on domestic perfection for expectant customers breathing calmly above.

With the advent of spring comes a bevy of neighborhood street art.

Thanks to the efforts of Fourth Arts Block (“FAB”), four square blocks of East Village territory have collectively become a canvas for some new sanctioned street scribbling. This corridor of art is part of the four-year-old ArtUp initiative, a program which aims to “reinvigorate spaces through public art and community partnerships.”

Artist Alley @ Extra Place is in the spotlight, currently in the second round of sidewalk beautification. The artist tapped for the effort was Argentinian-born Sonni, who painted his colorful “Music Machine” on half the concrete slabs. It’ll hold court here until November.

Meanwhile, other artwork in the immediate vicinity includes Know Hope on Second Street and Cake on Third Street.

Walking along East Houston Friday afternoon, we noticed that many of the light poles and other street furniture were littered with cleverly-written “Wanted” posters for the Governator himself. The Terminator-inspired tear-tab flyers are actually street promo (surprise) for something called “Terminator Too.” Get ready for some hilarity.

Terminator Too: Judgement Play is a new interactive play that spoofs the blockbuster 1991 Schwarzenegger flick. It’s directed by Thomas Blake who scored an underground West Coast hit with Point Break Live. Actors from that show are joining the cast for this latest parody production. The defining element, however, is that the title role of Terminator is chosen each night from the audience, by the audience. This promises to be an interesting spectacle.

Here’s more from the official website:

Get blasted by super-soakers! Witness the scorching of He-Man action figures! Be dazzled by James Cameron’s revolutionary action sequences and special effects… recreated LIVE (in true 3D)… with next to no budget at all!

Think your Arnold Schwarzenegger impersonation is the best around? Here’s your chance to prove it. For each show, the role of THE  TERMINATOR will be chosen from the audience… by the audience!  Don’t worry, we’ll provide all of Arnold’s complex, important dialogue on cue cards.

Terminator Too: Judgement Play runs from June 23 through August 11 at Santos Party House.

Dolce Vita and Some Odd Rubies on Ludlow Street together hit a similar retail trajectory. Both relocated from their longtime headquarters, and both were replaced by like-minded shops in a New York minute.

Indeed, as quickly as Dolce Vita departed the Lower East Side, another similar establishment took the proverbial reigns.  Brown paper materialized in the windows of 149 Ludlow mere days after the space became a restricted free agent. A tell-tale sign of new business.  Sure enough, over the weekend, the latest boutique revealed itself to the neighborhood. Blessed Peacemakers, a shop specializing in womenswear.

The more things change along this micro-row of retail, the more they stay the same…

Not everyone is drinking the Kool Aid that marketers at Stuy Town are mixing. That of no broker fees and a free month of rent. In response to our story about the housing complex advertising apartment deals on Spotify, one reader in the adjacent Peter Cooper Village decided to set the record straight.

From the inbox:

Stuy Town isn’t offering a free month’s rent because they are having trouble filling apartments, this offer is designed to turn over the apartment in a year and raise the market rate rent an additional 20%.

The free month of rent Stuy Town is offering, which used to be two free months, is divided by twelve months and the monthly rent is discounted for the year. For example, a one bedroom typically rents for $3,500 per month. Divide $3,500 by twelve and it comes out to roughly $291.66. Subtract $291.66 from $3,500, and the discounted monthly rent drops to $3,208.84.

When it’s time to renew the lease in a year, the rent jumps back to $3,500. The rent increase is based on this number. A typical increase is between 7% and 10%, making the new rent as high as $3,850, a $641.16 increase. The tenant typically moves out and Stuy Town is allowed to legally raise the rent on the apartment an additional 20%.

And the hits keep coming. Fresh off the success of their first collaboration, neighborhood coffee shop The Bean is again tapping the artistic services of Jim “Mosaic Man״ Power.

Once renovations are complete (very soon) at the new 147 First Avenue location, The Bean will occupy two highly-trafficked East Village corners. The Mosaic Man, now an in-house artist of sorts for the java joint, is seemingly along for the ride. Last week, the 64-year-old artist added sparkling coffee cups to complement the colorful “steam” murals already in place by Walker Fee (commissioned by Paint the Town).

[photos via Mosaic Man]

A year of storefront devolution at the corner of Essex and Delancey has come to an end. As we first reported early last month, New Roma Pizza is poised to make its illustrious comeback, having completely remodeled the interior and opened the second floor to dining. As such, a faded, punched-out canopy just wasn’t gonna cut it anymore.

The bright red replacement canopy arrived at 116 Delancey last week, easily attracting eyeballs with its conspicuous hue. It’s just as kitschy as the last one. New Roma Pizza should reopen in the coming weeks. Will you be eating there again?

Posted in: 1060 West Addison by Franny Wentzel. Two images from the Chicago NATO protests. Why they don't hold these meeting at an airport conference center or some out-of-the-way resort like The Greenbrier is beyond me. It's like they want riots... Judge Mathis don't take no crap... Edna's about to get taken down... Images stolen from www.facebook.com/james.watkins.9634

Design writer Alissa Walker recently took a tour of L.A.'s original subway system, one whose tunnels are no longer in operation, though they remain down there— [Image: L.A.'s original subway, now walled-off beneath downtown; photo by Alissa Walker]. —bricked off and all but forgotten beneath buildings downtown. [Image:Photo by Alissa Walker]. Cue horror movie soundtrack here, with hapless apartment dwellers in a newly renovated downtown loft complex finding strange things coming up from the facility's voluminous basement floors; the power is always flickering on and off; pets disappear; strange sounds skitter and thump down the corridors at night, leaving muddy trails; and then somehow, someone, as in the following photograph— [Image: A walled-up sign announces, "TRAINS"; photo by Alissa Walker]. —knocks a hole in the wall, perhaps accidentally knocking a piece of furniture into the walls as they move their new table or couch into the building, revealing the eery, abandoned subway tunnels below. And, soon, they go down to find the answers to what's going on in their otherwise multimillion dollar building, only to open the door to something altogether much worse. [Image: Photo by Alissa Walker]. In any case, absent of these clichéd public-transit-is-a-source-of-horror motifs, Alissa's write-up of the tunnel visit is worth reading in full—and, even better, they will be leading another such visit again some time soon. You'll see sites like this. Sign-up on the Design East of La Brea website for this and other such events, and don't miss any future announcements.

Posted in: by Benji. It's been years since I've posted here! The sunrise out out the window the other morning around 7am:

Red Hot Chili Peppers, “Universally Speaking” (2002)

Time for a video interlude, in which four-time National Amateur Boxer champ Eric Kelly (“cut from leather”) gives condescending boxing lessons at the Church Street Boxing Gym in the Financial District. It’s hilarious, so take four minutes to check it out. There’s plenty of insults lobbed toward nerds and Wall Street types.

Here we go…

Church Street Boxing Gym is located at 25 Park Place.

I appreciate gardens, synagogues, libraries and even chestnut tree allées, but here’s what: two LES sites are in 5th and 6th place in the Partners in Preservation contest.  What that means is we are LOSING! And I don’t know about you, but there is nothing I like about losing.

Most of you are Lower East Siders, are you not? Bowery Boogie is a hyper-local LES site so that would make sense and what would make even more sense is for you, between now and Monday (May 21), to vote for the Tenement Museum, the Henry Street Settlement, Duo Multicultural Arts Center, and St. Mark’s in-the-Bowery.  The top 4 win.

We can do this LES!! No neighborhood is more deserving than us! Please don’t let us lose!

Peace.

Allison B. Siegel aka The Ghost of Neighborhood’s Past.

I finally became a paying member of Subterranea Britannica this week, a website and historical organization whose interests (and influence) cast a long shadow over this blog's early years. Joining is £28 a year for overseas members and seems well worth it so far, having received my first issue of their internal newsletter, Subterranea, just last night. From Irish souterrains—described as "the 'underground castles' of early medieval Ireland, used as strongholds and escape tunnels," or, in the words of Current Archaeology, "secret tunnels dug to outwit marauding Norsemen"—to World War I tunnels in La Boisselle, France, and from plans for future deep-level "supersewers" beneath both Milwaukee and London to, amongst many other fascinating things, a project I can't wait to learn more about called the London Power Tunnels, a mafia boss who was captured in an "underground hideout" built twelve miles outside Naples ("access from within the house was via a sliding door on rails in one of the bedrooms," Subterranea explains), the fact that Northern Ireland had "secret contingency plans" for surviving a nuclear war and they involved stockpiling "more than 100,000 pieces of plastic cutlery," to the enormous "stacks of gold bars worth £156 billion stored in an old canteen deep below the streets" of London in a former WWII air-raid shelter now used by the Bank of England, there is a mind-boggling amount of interesting things to read. Even better, membership comes with otherwise unobtainable invitations to events and underground site tours throughout the UK. Consider joining, if this sort of stuff piques your interest.

The fifteenth annual NYC Tattoo Convention is rolling through town this weekend, setting up shop inside Roseland Ballroom. Here’s a taste of what to expect, courtesy of Clayton Patterson.

Gallery pasted below. Be sure to stay tuned for more.

Meantime, who’s gonna get the Boogie logo branded on their body?

Posted in: Melbourne, AU by zink. peering through the trees. what do we have here.

Until a few weeks ago, it was rather commonplace to see a small queue huddled outside the nearly non-existent storefront at 25A Essex Street. The closet-sized retail space was home to xCubicle, a game system repair shop that conducted business through a “fast food window” with drop-off counter. Sorta like a quick-and-dirty toll booth. On any given visit, the cramped eight-by-five-foot workshop was visibly filled to the brim with scattered tools and gutted game consoles.

Business is reportedly thriving, with more customers journeying from afar.  Their exposure reaches outside the neighborhood from way uptown to Queens and Brooklyn.  We were told that client demographic is more adult than child, and that the most popular consoles brought in for servicing are XBox and Playstation 3.  The market for this service is rather niche, and while there is some competition, these guys hold their own.

So with success comes a new location…at the same location. Indeed, when the adjacent real estate at the corner of Hester Street became available for lease, xCubicle seized the day.  The workshop has been in the process of moving next door for the last few weeks, and will finally reopen tomorrow. 25 Essex offers a much larger footprint for repair work, and allows the company to dabble in Skillshare classes for photography and electronics.

xCubicle is a full service center which offers mail-in repair options, sells used video games, and buys back old systems at a nominal price (mainly for parts).

xCubicle, 25 Essex Street, (917) 338-0645; M-F: 1-7 pm, Wkd: 1-6 pm

The epic mural is pretty much an announcement that work is officially underway at 199 Bowery. Since Sunday afternoon, LA-based pop artist Alec Monopoly has been painting the ginormous plywood shed covering the future EMM joint. Progress was slow but steady. We stopped by yesterday evening to watch the application of the final brushstrokes; thing was damn near completed. Not much of a public spectacle, unlike Tony Goldman’s graffiti wall a few blocks north. Blame the narrower sidewalks.

In any event, the mural itself seems to be an opus of sorts, incorporating other works from his catalog, notably the Jack Nicholson and Bob Dylan.

What’s your favorite Monopoly token to use?