San Francisco | The New York Observer

San Francisco as New York's Future? Don't Go There

Mon, 13 Oct 2008 08:09:02 -0400

"Don't be fooled by the postcards your friends send you. The rich and the poor are basically all that remain here. Few poor own any form of real estate so they're not contributing in the way of property taxes. The 20-something students certainly aren't contributing to this place. It's a topsy-turvy town right now. Generally, only the affluent own real estate or those who purchased it eons ago. ... Tourism is the primary reason...

The Starbucks of Sandwich Shops Returns to Flatiron District

Fri, 06 Apr 2007 11:29:08 -0400

'Wichcraft has returned to Flatiron. The upscale sandwich shop, started by Craft restaurant owner Tom Colicchio, opened an outpost earlier this week just west of Broadway on 20th Street. The store is the chain's eighth location in the city. In 2003, 'wichcraft opened its first outlet on 19th Street between Park Avenue and Broadway just around the corner from Craft, but had to move when the building was sold. "We have been looking to...

To Starbucks, We Are All Hyper-Caffeinated Lemmings

Tue, 03 Apr 2007 08:19:14 -0400

Ever wonder why Starbucks opens so many locations so near one another? Because the tactic works, apparently. People, simply put, will not wait in long lines for their caffeine fixes. The Wall Street Journal on Tuesday noted Starbucks' success in West Coast cities like Vancouver and San Francisco: No matter how badly people wanted a latte, if the line looked too long, they'd keep walking. Opening another store nearby was the retail equivalent of basketball's...

Why Are the Feds After Josh Wolf?

Sun, 04 Mar 2007 19:00:00 -0500

If he cares to, Josh Wolf can claim his place in the Guinness Book of Records. A few days ago, he passed Vanessa Leggett as the longest incarcerated American journalist. Ms. Leggett was made to sit in a jail cell for 168 days five years ago. Josh Wolf, who is 24, has been locked up in a federal facility in Dublin, Calif., since last August. (His lawyers got him out for a few...

City Tops for Foreign Commercial Real-Estate Investment, Survey Says

Wed, 24 Jan 2007 09:01:59 -0500

New York tops Washington, D.C., survey says! Well, at least among very rich foreign investors and their preference to invest in commercial real estate here. The survey was conducted by the Association of Foreign Investors in Real Estate, based in--of all places--Madison, Wis. L.A., San Francisco and Seattle round out the top-five. The full release after the jump. - John Koblin FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Big Apple Bobs to Top Among Foreign Real Estate Investors Washington (January 24,...

Was James Kim Victimized by Off-Road Car Ads?

Thu, 07 Dec 2006 16:02:57 -0500

When tragedy befell them on Bear Camp Road in southwest Oregon, the Kim family was driving an all-wheel drive Saab 9-2X . Saab's website shows the sporting vehicle performing on a lot of mountain roads, at least one a little snowy, and in that one the car is carrying skis. SUV ads treat the outdoors like a tame pussycat. SUVs can go anywhere off-road. No, the Saab 9-2X isn't an SUV, but All-Wheel-Drive for a...

The Invention of Human Topiary

Sun, 03 Dec 2006 19:00:00 -0500

I spoke to Ivan Rezki, who still lives in the house where he grew up, in Bayside, Queens. SPARROW: I understand your mother, Sarah, invented human topiary. MR. REZKI: Yes, she did. Sparrow: Can you explain? Mr. Rezki: Topiary, of course, is the art of trimming trees and bushes into amusing shapes. My mother was always fascinated with such gardens. One day, she noticed that our backyard contained a large number of overgrown vines....

City-Bred Beauty Bar Franchise Tries To Not Sell Out

Tue, 14 Nov 2006 09:56:35 -0500

"McDive" not as ubiquitous as golden arches. Yet. This week's Village Voice profiles New York-based Beauty Bar's emergence as the "country's first hipster bar chain." Yet, despite opening locations in Los Angeles, San Francisco, San Diego, Las Vegas and Austin, owner Paul Devitt is adamant about "not looking to be the Hard Rock [Cafe]." So he selects his new sites very carefully -- in a desperate attempt to not kill the cool vibe. Beauty Bar's owners...

Google's New Digs! And WiFi?

Mon, 02 Oct 2006 11:06:51 -0400

Wherefore WiFi? Google settled in at 111 Eighth Avenue this morning. It's a giant space--more than 300,000 square feet, in fact. According to Crain's, the new location will have the company's largest advertising sales office and its second biggest engineering center (only behind its main headquarters). Google execs wouldn't say today whether their entry to their sleek Manhattan office would mean additional WiFi to the city beyond Bryant Park, where they already provide free service. ...

New York Times Kills Real Estate Blog

Mon, 11 Sep 2006 13:38:18 -0400

This past weekend, the New York Times published the first issue of Key, a quarterly real estate magazine packed with 150 pages of features and full-page color ads of new condominiums and modern furniture. Today, the paper officially killed The Walk Through, its real estate blog. The decision to discontinue the blog does not come as a complete surprise: There have been no new posts since Aug. 7. Launched in November 2005, the blog has...

Kiki and Herb Finally Grow Up— But Is Broadway Ready For It?

Sun, 13 Aug 2006 20:00:00 -0400

After the show, Justin Bond’s dressing room reeked with the powdery, meaty smell of foundation. On a table crowded with eye shadow, a box of Red Bliss chips and a Rockstar energy drink hardly seemed more edible. Mr. Bond was moisturizing. His dirty blond hair was short, jagged, plastered down. Though he is slender and a little angelic, his voice was unbelievably husky and low. Out in the hallway, a less obviously exhausted Kenny...

A Very National Sort of Statewide Campaign

Fri, 07 Jul 2006 06:01:42 -0400

Hillary Clinton is on a Western fundraising swing today, scheduled to appear this morning at a benefit for Arnold Schwarzenegger's opponent in San Francisco and, tonight, at a cocktail reception for her Senate campaign at the Denver home of Laura and Bob Hill. The graphic shown above is Gregg Birnbaum's scrupulously understated take on the real reason for the trip. (Hint: It has very little to do with John Spencer.) -- Josh...

Eating Freely

Sun, 23 Apr 2006 19:26:01 -0400

"People who make doughnuts or lattes or S.U.V.'s do not get to consume their products freely." —David Carr, The New York...

The Daily Transom

Sun, 23 Apr 2006 19:15:51 -0400

"People who make doughnuts or lattes or S.U.V.'s do not get to consume their products freely." —David Carr, The New York Times. Between the years 1987 and 1994, The Transom worked at: Al Gelato, Evanston, Ill.; Espresso Bongo, San Francisco, Ca. (underground in the Montgomery Street BART station, no less); Johanna's Wine Bar, Chicago, Ill.; World Coffee, Los Angeles, Ca.; The Bakery on Melrose, Los Angeles, Ca.; and a few other cafe/bakery/restaurant-type places. In each...

‘Howl,’ Ginsberg’s Time Bomb, Still Setting Off New Explosions

Sun, 09 Apr 2006 20:00:00 -0400

Hyperbolic titles invite dissent. So here’s mine: What makes Allen Ginsberg’s “Howl” “the poem that changed America,” as the cover of this essay collection proclaims? Ginsberg might’ve responded by saying, as he did in a 1986 essay included here, that when San Francisco’s City Lights Bookstore published “Howl” 50 years ago, changing America was part of the plan: “I was curious to leave behind after my generation an emotional time bomb that would continue...

Hourihan-Kottke Blog Merger Planned for this Weekend

Fri, 24 Mar 2006 08:00:25 -0500

"Blogging, it turns out, is the CB radio of the Dave Eggers generation," wrote Rebecca Mead in The New Yorker in November, 2000. She goes on: And that is how, when Meg Hourihan followed up her French-boyfriend-depression posting with a stream-of-consciousness blog entry a few weeks later saying that she had developed a crush on someone but was afraid to act on it—"Maybe I've become very good at eluding love but that's not a...

Fusion

Thu, 16 Mar 2006 09:09:42 -0500

David Sirota has an interesting op-ed in the San Francisco Chronicle, pushing for expanding the "fusion" rules that allow third parties in New York to cross-endorse, and heaping praise on the Working Families...

The Transom

Sun, 05 Mar 2006 19:00:00 -0500

Mr. Adams at 50 “I met him in Times Square,” said Walter Naegle about his former lover, the civil-rights leader Bayard Rustin. “There used to be a place on 42nd Street called Hotalings. It was a place that sold newspapers from all over the country and all over the world. I was on my way there because I had decided to leave New York and move to San Francisco, and I was going to...

Go Suck an Egg, Design Within Reach!

Wed, 01 Mar 2006 04:16:35 -0500

Design Within Retch. Those "well-meaning," Dwell-reading San Francisco snobs behind Design Within Reach (the patronizing factor in their "design-news"-minded e-mail updates is not to be missed) have taken over the perfectly respectable middlebrow prefab home storefront that was once Portico, on Broadway and 20th Street. Trading petit-bourgeois for bourgeois, in fact, seems to be the real-estate maxim of middle-Broadway these days, as delis give way to places with names like "Tisserie" and Tom Colicchio...

The Wrong Kind of People: I'm Farmisht With Charles Grodin!

Sun, 19 Feb 2006 19:00:00 -0500

It could be that I have a bias against the small dramas of members of East Side co-op boards, in which case the kindly Mr. Grodin will surely forgive me. And so, I...

The Wrong Kind of People: I’m Farmisht With Charles Grodin!

Sun, 19 Feb 2006 19:00:00 -0500

Charles Grodin has written a play about co-op board meetings in a Fifth Avenue building. Second only to writing a play about potato farming in Idaho, I’m not sure Mr. Grodin’s idea is quite so exciting as it may seem. It could be that I have a bias against the small dramas of members of East Side co-op boards, in which case the kindly Mr. Grodin will surely forgive me. And so, I...

Tickets Still Available

Wed, 25 Jan 2006 08:17:00 -0500

The Chronicle reports that Hillary doesn't seem to be packing in the crowds for a charity event in San Francisco, at which she'll be interviewed by Jane Pauley. (Second...

I Loved Your Book: The Strange Desire To Praise the Talented

Sun, 15 Jan 2006 19:00:00 -0500

Not long ago, some friends and I wandered into a Friday-night art opening in Chelsea for the actor—and apparently the painter—Martin Mull. Like everyone else, we drifted from painting to painting while pretending not to steal glances at Mr. Mull, swirling a glass, off to the side. There should be a German word for when a Hollywood actor produces better paintings than what you’d expected. When we’d finally seen enough, I found myself overcome...

I Loved Your Book: The Strange Desire To Praise the Talented

Sun, 15 Jan 2006 19:00:00 -0500

On the Waterfront

Wed, 04 Jan 2006 06:55:00 -0500

Don't miss this survey of the battle for the soul of the East River waterfront--both sides of the river, and of the argument--in Gotham Gazette. A bit of context: It has happened in many of the great old cities of the world. In London, a power station along the Thames River became the Tate Modern Museum. In Paris, a train station on the Seine became the Musee d’Orsay. In San Francisco, an old chocolate factory became...

Letters

Sun, 25 Dec 2005 19:00:00 -0500

No Guts, No Glory

To the Editor: As one whose journalism career (news editor, San Francisco Examiner; national news editor, Los Angeles Times; and television reporter and producer, NBC and CBS) spanned the years 1957 to 1987, I appreciated Nicholas von Hoffman’s piece on the complicity of journalists, if not journalism, in the duplicities that led to the war in Iraq [“There’s Nothing Glorious About Today’s Journalism,” The National Observer, Dec. 19]. There are other...

Letters

Sun, 25 Dec 2005 19:00:00 -0500

No Guts, No Glory To the Editor: As one whose journalism career (news editor, San Francisco Examiner; national news editor, Los Angeles Times; and television reporter and producer, NBC and CBS) spanned the years 1957 to 1987, I appreciated Nicholas von Hoffman’s piece on the complicity of journalists, if not journalism, in the duplicities that led to the war in Iraq [“There’s Nothing Glorious About Today’s Journalism,” The National Observer, Dec. 19]. There are...

If the Kitchen Falls Short, The Cocktails Compensate

Sun, 06 Nov 2005 19:00:00 -0500

Kitchens & Cocktails 199 Orchard Street

212-420-1112 One Star Dress: Casual Lighting: A red bordello glow Noise Level: High Wine List: Around 50 bottles, international, interesting and reasonably priced Credit Cards: All major Price Range: Main courses, brunch, $8.50 to $14.95; dinner, $8.50 to $16.75 Dinner: Saturday and Sunday, noon to 3 p.m. The bartender worked at top speed, tossing raspberries, lime juice and a squirt of soda water into a row...

An Icon of Simple Perfection Hatches in the East Village

Sun, 07 Aug 2005 20:00:00 -0400

The egg has been called nature’s perfect shape. But that doesn’t mean it can’t be improved upon, does it? Did you know that for just $2.99 you can buy a nifty, pocket-sized egg ‘‘cuber”? All you have to do is push a peeled, cooked egg into the plastic container and screw down the lid. Within seconds, lo and behold, a square egg! What could be simpler?

There are no square eggs at Uovo, a restaurant...

An Icon of Simple Perfection Hatches in the East Village

Sun, 07 Aug 2005 20:00:00 -0400

Disco Decibels Demolished

Sun, 31 Jul 2005 20:00:00 -0400

“He’s a monster! A silent dancing monster,” raved Veronica Dougherty. It was Saturday night, and a shy-looking boy had stumbled inside from the garden at Stain Bar in Williamsburg. Ms. Dougherty, a 32-year-old artist, flashed him a broad grin of approval from her barstool. Dripping sweat behind his glasses, the boy smiled and shuffled over wearily, a beer-starved refugee from the disco action outside. But to what subtle song had he been...

Trend Watch: Coffee Warehouses

Mon, 25 Jul 2005 05:35:00 -0400

"SEATTLE, July 22--Inside a former Starbucks warehouse, this city's bomb squad headquarters, the police chief and 15 captains and sergeants--accompanied by a robot that can extract explosives from packages and pin down a suspect--huddled the other day to tackle a topic suddenly urgent to the police across the nation: suicide bombers," Suicide Bombings Bring Urgency to Police in U.S., by Sarah Kershaw, The New York Times, July 25, 2005. "SAN FRANCISCO, July 23 - The...

Turning Japanese?

Thu, 14 Jul 2005 03:22:00 -0400

We missed yesterday's piece by Steve Cuozzo about the sale of the Essex House to Dubai Investment Group, a subsidiary of Dubai Holding. It's not their first prominent tourism-related purchase. The firm last year bought Madam Tussaud's (along with a portfolio of apartment buildings in the U.S. sunbelt worth about $1 billion). And it was part of the consortium that bought the Sir Francis Drake Hotel in San Francisco last month. (A quick digression: Dubai is the...

A Glorious Beginning Spoiled-Childhood and Memoir Both

Sun, 22 May 2005 20:00:00 -0400

Oh the Glory of It All, by Sean Wilsey. The Penguin Press, 482 pages, $25.95. Sean Wilsey had a lousy childhood, which is a shame. Then, when his father died, his stepmother inherited a considerable fortune, part of which might otherwise have gone to Sean, who got nothing, which is also a shame. Before you reach for your hanky, though, consider that in addition to arranging for a lousy childhood, his fabulous, monstrous...

A Glorious Beginning Spoiled-Childhood and Memoir Both

Sun, 22 May 2005 20:00:00 -0400

Oh the Glory of It All, by Sean Wilsey. The Penguin Press, 482 pages, $25.95.

Sean Wilsey had a lousy childhood, which is a shame. Then, when his father died, his stepmother inherited a considerable fortune, part of which might otherwise have gone to Sean, who got nothing, which is also a shame. Before you reach for your hanky, though, consider that in addition to arranging for a lousy childhood, his fabulous, monstrous parents handed...

Anonymous Flyer Redux

Mon, 16 May 2005 06:36:00 -0400

As you may recall, Mike's campaign got a notarized pledge from an operative involved in the 2001 Sharpton flyer meltdown, pledging that he won't be involved in this year's campaign. And as predicted, it didn't take very long for that implicit condemnation of the "racist" Mark Green campaign to come back to bite the Mayor. Now, the Daily News reports, Mike's own direct mail guy -- he hasn't been hired yet for this campaign, but he...

Hollywood Gale Brewer

Fri, 22 Apr 2005 11:42:00 -0400

Upper West Side Councilwoman Gale Brewer tells us Robin Williams just finished a month of filming in her West 95th Street home. Brewer tells us Williams's forthcoming film, The Night Listener, "has something to do with libraries." The Booklist review of the Armistead Maupin novel it's based on begins, "Gay novelist Gabriel Noone is blue since his spouse, Jess, decamped to pursue his bliss among San Francisco's leather men." OK. "They were very nice and gave a contribution...

Barney Frank: Tough to Please

Tue, 15 Mar 2005 05:41:00 -0500

Barney Frank has been trying to chart a middle course in the fight for gay marriage, supporting same-sex unions while criticizing San Francisco's not-quite-legal venture into marriage controversy. Now Gay City News is reporting that the Massachusetts Congressman had some unkind words for Mike, who has tried to set out a similarly nuanced position. "The best way to win same-sex marriage—through the courts and politically—is when you're defending a reality. That's where Bloomberg undermined us," Frank...

Urban Delusion

Thu, 10 Mar 2005 16:57:00 -0500

The folks over at the Center for an Urban Future aren't going to like this, but Joel Kotkin has a new article arguing fairly persuasively that the future is actually suburban. Planners, architects, and environmentalists, he says, should get used to it. Kotkin offers some data to back up the claim that "the notions of suburban decline or a big-time downtown revival are delusional. "All the growth predicted recently for the 30 top U.S. downtowns through...

The New H.I.V. Strain: Sullivan, Kaiser Sound Off

Sun, 20 Feb 2005 19:00:00 -0500

In June 1985, a centerpiece float in San Francisco's Gay Freedom Day Parade bore a giant mock tombstone shrouded in garlands. Solemn volunteers walked down Castro Street, handing out fistfuls of free condoms. Not long before, the parade had been an extravaganza replete with drag queens and leather chaps, but AIDS had changed the mood, wrote Randy Shilts in And the Band Played On, his magisterial account of the first years of the epidemic....

The Face Painter of Modern Life: Makeup Artist Thrills ’Em at Bendel

Sun, 31 Oct 2004 19:00:00 -0500

When world-renowned makeup artist Kevyn Aucoin died in May 2002 of a pituitary tumor, many assumed it was curtains for his eponymous new cosmetics line. But Kevyn Aucoin Beauty has been flourishing nicely, thanks to the deft ministrations of one Craig Jessup, 22, a theater major at Marymount Manhattan College with a cherubic face and a 70’s glam-rock mullet. "He’s just a genius with the brush," cooed Laura Saio, a senior buyer for cosmetics...

Fondue and Fabio: Gay Marriage in L.A.

Sun, 29 Feb 2004 19:00:00 -0500

The knowledge that same-sex couples were getting married en masse like so many Moonies up there in granola-gobbling, hippie San Francisco might have lent an especial pep to the second annual Los Angeles Gay and Lesbian Wedding Expo, held on Sunday, Feb. 22, at the flesh-colored Wyndham Bel Age Hotel in West Hollywood.

The air smelled of cheese: There was a large communal pot of fondue just inside the entrance. Two Fabio types were strumming...

Heretical Veggies, And A Courageous Chicken In Every Pot

Sun, 25 May 2003 20:00:00 -0400

Humankind must eat, agreed; and as with all the other habits of our metabolism-addicted nature, words can be used to describe the pleasures and pains of eating, its elegancies of style, the distinctions thereof, even the grunts and snorts of greedy feeding. And writers by their nature must write, some of them choosing culinary expertise as their subject.

A few snotty souls seem fated by a contrary trait to hold their noses upon encountering prose...

The U.S. Economy: What's All the Fuss?

Sun, 02 Feb 2003 19:00:00 -0500

Somehow, it's become an accepted fact that the American economy is in the doldrums. People give each other knowing, tight-lipped glances when the topic of "how the economy is doing" comes up. But this widespread grim view is not borne out by the facts. The truth is, we ought to be thankful for the current economy. Sure, it may seem a bit pale compared with the red-hot 1990's, and yes, the Bush administration's economic...

New Museum by Bay At Least Has Matisse And Ellsworth Kelly

Sun, 24 Nov 2002 19:00:00 -0500

On a recent visit to California, I had my first look at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art-the first, that is, since the museum acquired a building of its own (designed by Swiss architect Mario Botta in 1995) and went on a widely reported spending spree to load up on the work of celebrity artists. This was not an encounter I was looking forward to. A few years ago, I had attended a...

Consider This A Letter Of Resignation

Sun, 20 Jan 2002 19:00:00 -0500

On a recent Friday evening-when I should

have been on a date or seeing The Royal Tenenbaums again, or, at the very least, sitting alone in my apartment listening to the Knicks lose to Indiana or Charlotte or whomever it is they lose to these days- I found myself at Brooks Brothers. I'd actually been glad that my plans for the evening had fallen through so I could wander around the warmly lit mahogany corners of the store on 44th and Madison,...

Restaurant Giant Drew Nieporent Lived to Eat, Now He Eats to Live

Sun, 09 Sep 2001 20:00:00 -0400

On the last Thursday of August, restaurateur Drew Nieporent sat at a lone table outside TriBakery, one of 16 restaurants–including Montrachet, Tribeca Grill and Nobu–that his Myriad Restaurant Group owns or co-owns. The wind off the Hudson was promising fall, and beneath a three-tiered, white-frosted wedding cake that loomed in the store's window, Mr. Nieporent was recounting a harrowing experience he'd had at a restaurant.

The week before, he had traveled to California to attend...

Virtue in Flush Times: A Bull Market in Moralities

Sun, 08 Apr 2001 20:00:00 -0400

Moral Freedom: The Search for Virtue in a World of Choice , by Alan Wolfe. W.W. Norton, 256 pages, $24.95.

"We were about halfway through another interview," writes the Boston College sociologist Alan Wolfe early in Moral Freedom, "before it became clear that the respondent did not know what the word 'virtue' meant and had been too polite to ask." To find out how Americans think about right and wrong, Mr. Wolfe took a poll...

I Want More Than Just the Facts, Ma'am

Sun, 08 Apr 2001 20:00:00 -0400

People complain that journalists are getting too personal.

What right do they have to poke around in other people's closets, leaving the door wide open when they're done? Sometimes I agree that the Fourth Estate is made up of pigs snuffling through the garbage. Do I need to know what Princess Diana had for dinner hours before her fatal car crash? I do not. But other times I notice that the press seems peculiarly delicate, discreet, leaving holes in their...

The Colored Parent: Alice Walker's Kid Tells All

Sun, 04 Feb 2001 19:00:00 -0500

Black, White and Jewish: Autobiography of a Shifting Self , by Rebecca Walker. Riverhead Books, 320 pages, $23.95.

"Are you really black and Jewish?" a fellow Yalie once asked Rebecca Walker. "How can that be possible?" She didn't answer him, but the question was one she had been asking her whole life: "Am I possible?" Her mother, writer Alice Walker, and her father, Jewish civil rights lawyer Mel Levanthal, certainly must have thought so when...