A friend of mine once told me that your bodega knows all your darkest secrets. Being my primary water supply, East Village Farms may know me better than myself. When I heard that they were closing I found it hard to believe; it’s clean, friendly, busy and, well, pricey. I always assumed it had long ago cleared the zenith of the retail life-cycle and was well into piloting the stratosphere of boundless, automatic prosperity. But this bodega has it’s own secret, one that anybody looking at the building from across the street will wonder - what’s upstairs?
A giant windowless brick shell traversed only by an old, warped fire escape juts up some 40ft directly above the store front, a giant black box. I learned from people in the neighborhood that this was once the old Hollywood Theatre which shut down in 1959, but what was more surprising was when I found out it wasn’t just another dusty, gutted empty space, but that it was the functional store room for my dearest bodega! If the store was my sparkling spring, this was its cavernous aquifer. I began asking regularly about going upstairs at every two-dollar hydration visit. I wanted to photograph it and at one point late at night did receive permission, only to return the following day to be met with language barriers and gestures of denial. Eventually, I found my friend working again and received an invitation to return “after midnight”. So I showed up with my camera and tripod, he warned me there was only one light, but it was plenty. Walking through the back past all the things you would expect and up a small staircase deposits you stage-left in this little store’s swollen subconscious.
After spending at least an hour shooting up there, I came down and gladly purchased a $15.50 6-pack of bud light. I’ll miss this place and the kind ladies who would sometimes slip a Haribo gummy pack into your bag. Rumor is the building and the old theatre are to be torn down very soon to make way for new development, East Village Farms will be closed in just a few weeks…
More photos at kevinsheaadams.com.
Source: aleceiffelphoto
From Me To You: 10 Great Gifts for the Man in your Life
Guys are hard to shop for right?! That’s why this list is curated with his help! I can tell you, I live with most of these dude things around me so they are From Me To You approved and even at times borrowed because I like them myself!
Here we go:
1. Brompton - Guys love transformers…
Source: fromme-toyou
Source: therealbigboi
<rant>
Apparently I don’t respond well to buzz words. If you don’t have anything real to say, don’t just add some term that’s popular at the moment and expect my respect.
</rant>
If this was New York City...: House Guests
Situation: A friend from out of town will be staying at your apartment for a few days.
If this was New York: As soon as the subject comes up, you go into full scale event planning mode that most people reserve for their wedding. You clear your schedule. You consider any work-related…
True.
Source: ifthiswasny
The wife and I just moved to a side street in Greenpoint. I highly recommend living on a side street if you live in a city. I am amazed at how different it is just one and a half blocks away.
Also, it’s nice to find out that moving to a new place with someone for the second time is much different than the first. It’s a whole lot less about dividing up the space and a whole lot more about figuring out what works for both of you.
I’ve also decided that I need to make an effort to be less of a cynic in life and work. Here’s to that.
The biggest part of passion is caring to a fault.
- Daniel: can i rant for a moment about something from our childhood that really bothers me?
- me: of course
- Daniel: the names of the ninja turtles and their personalities
- me: haha
- Daniel: i really cannot stand that they so obviously just attached names to personalities at random
- there is no correlation between them at ALL
- and there could be
- you make donatello the leader (he was, after all, the precursor to the artistic movements perfectted by the other three)
- Leonardo would be the engineer genius
- OBVIOUSLY
- and then michelangelo was a hermit
- me: that is very true.
- Daniel: he hated parties
- unlike rafael who loved parties and was a bit of a dandy
- so you switch those two and then its HILARIOUS whenever they act up
Things that I’m worried about right now-a list
Thoughts randomly spewing from my mind right now.
Moving. We’re moving into a new apt in July. I’m excited, anxious, and nervous about his prospect. We’ll be living above a nice couple who have been living in the Point since they were 7 years old. Amazing. I’m worried that I will interrupt their life somehow, that I won’t be able to play the guitar if I want to because they will be right below me, that I’ll come home drunk one night and embarras myself with some slurred conversation.
Death. Well that’s a little too obvious. I don’t think I’m worried about my own death so much as I’m worried about others dying. What would I do, how would I cope, where would I end up in the world. I think I would most likely become a monk or something if my wife died. Unplug from the world indefinitely… something like that.
Getting fat and old. One of these things is out of my control, but the other is certainly not. My entire family has been plagued with anxiety over weight, even though, all around, we’re a pretty healthy group. It all goes back to my great grandmother, who was some 300 odd pounds (a really big weight for her time) and had to undergo shock therapy for the treatment of depression. Her whole ordeal affected my grandmother so much that she in turn passed some shit on to my mom, my siblings, and myself.
My Health. I’ve been sick for about a month now. I’m tired of it and even more tired of going to the doctor. I know it doesn’t make sense to stay away from the doctor, but I sure as hell don’t feel like going.
At any rate, I’m anxious right now. I’m tired and depressed. I want to create something tangible in life, not just some bits and bytes on a computer somewhere that ends up in the waste bin three years from now, but that’s easier said than done. Maybe in the new apt I will have some time to spend doing those things.
At the end of the day, I’m happy with my life overall. Things get better. Days go by.
A tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.
