Help 72nd Street Help You

Has this ad always been here?

It’s weird, cause that’s exactly what we keep trying to tell our cats.  But all they ever want to do is listen to Pulp all night and watch us drink.

So frustrating.

Grinding, Cousin.

There was a time in this neighborhood when you didn’t need to set an alarm to wake you from your Saturday afternoon nap.  The clanging bell of the knife sharpening truck would have had you covered, its siren song calling any man, woman or small child in the unfortunate possession of a dull blade.

Modern times, however, and the increased disposability of kitchen knives, have since slowed Del Re’s Grinding truck from it’s legendary cruising speed to a complete stop—to a (COUGH!) grinding halt—outside Zabar’s, during specified sharpening hours.

So, 2:00-4:00 on Saturdays.  Bring your knives, scissors, shears, axes (please don’t), lawnmowers or ice skates.  A complete pair of skates, or just the one.

One fun holdover from the glory days of sharpening is the lingering misconception about Del Re’s Grinding: The apostrophe?  Not actually possessive.  It’s a contraction.  As in, “Del Re is grinding.”

As in the Pusha-T and Malice sense of the word…

“Trip Like I Do” with P.S. 87

Good evening.

Tonight’s episode of Trip Like I Do brings us all the way to snowy West 78th Street—where District 3’s P.S. 87 is pretty sure those things are gonna taste better with some peanut butter.

In honor of P.S. 87’s piping hot, psychotropic mural, the Hot Stove is proud to propose the kind of treasure hunt fun normally reserved for the backs of children’s cereal boxes.  Serious fun.

Come.  Click the above image to enlarge.  Peer through the flurries of the Upper West wonderland.

Can you find…

1. A teepee?

2. A graveyard?

3. A Baltimore Oriole?

4. A cat that looks like a cat?

5. A cat that kind of looks like a dog?

6. An opium den genie and his trusty steed?

7. An Acropolis in flames? (Why?)

8. A tyrannosaurus-rat?

9. Children reading to a two-headed dodo bird?

10. An actual hut from the set of Rambo II?

Of course, one can’t help but wonder whether P.S. 87’s mural and very foundation are precisely the kinds of structures that might have been burnt to the ground under the controversial “scorched earth” policies of General William T. Sherman, for whom this elementary school is named.

And we were actually just on our way out, but you should totally feel free to go ahead and ask him about that yourself.

Recession Unspecial

The irony of it all (what all?) is that in these increasingly tough and aimless times, it is precisely the refuge for lost Upper West souls that gets hit.  “Hmmm,” says you.  Is that actually irony?  Who knows?  Go to Barnes & Noble and look it up.  Oh! It’s after 10:00 on a weeknight so now you can’t.

Barnes & Noble, 82nd and B’way:  Safe Haven, baby changing station,  inclement weather shelter, public non-lending library, make out spot, death of the independent book store, pro bono provider of unwanted middle school reunions.  All these things, but now for one less hour per day.  What are you gonna’ do?

Plus side:  You’ll always be home in time for Homicide: Life on the Street.  (In 1995.)

Hot Stove Poll #1: The M5 Bus

The M5 is a magical bus, providing both local and limited-stop service between Washington Heights and Greenwich Village.  This alone makes it pretty nice, but its the M5’s Upper West straightaway—along Riverside Drive, between 135th and 72nd—that really distinguishes it as a princely, top-shelf mode of transit.

The stretch along Riverside not only ensures your commute is scenic in every season, it also means that you are fucking fly-ing.  There’s nobody on board (nobody awake), even fewer people waiting to flag the bus down, and 9 times out of 10, you get green lights for days.  It makes the M104 look like dial-up.  On a good day, the M5 outruns Amtrak.  Fact.

Which brings us to today’s Gallup poll.  (Clip-clop, clip-clop.)

Vote early and often!

Thanks for playing.

Forever Wild: Riverside Park

Hey child

stay wilder

than the wind

and blow me in to cry-ee!

-Simon Le Bon (1958-    )

There are two basic things you should always remember when visiting Riverside Park, the most beloved park in the Union.

1. Give us a call first because we could probably use some more coffee down here.

2. Riverside Park is as wild as it is awesome. It is a breed of wild that won’t grow tame over time. Riverside’s wild is forever.

How wild is Riverside? Don’t even.

So wild that the Parks Department could no longer rely on mere word-of-mouth. They had to post a sign next to the gorgeous, hexagon-tiled steps shown above.

So wild that when Fido Dido drowned in the Hudson River, all that brontosaurus did was watch.

Opening Day, Cousin!

Your snow covered Great Lawn is but a distant memory.

The lunatics who arbitrarily placed fences on the Riverside Park fields will now have to remove them.

And someone better get the geese out of center field. Because they know they’re in left until they learn to hit the cut-off. Those assholes have no arms.

Nice work, America. There are officially zero days until Opening Day. Yanks open against Ontario today at 1:00 in the Bronx, and the Metropolitans begin @FLA in time for the early bird special. Meanwhile, in Central Park, Riverside and everywhere in between, the forecast calls for more flying white leather than the lines outside China Club and Latin Quarter combined. So look alive out there. Flip-down shades for all Fairway shoppers.

Two quick points:

1. If the above Riverside Park field was around in the 80’s instead of its concrete predecessors with the spray painted bases… don’t even get us started.

2. Yankees left fielder Hideki Matsui just got married in a super-secret ceremony during a spring training off-day. Were you wondering, by any chance, how Matsui’s artistic rendering of his new bride differed from the sketch his brother decided to draw? Yes, you were wondering? No, that makes you uncomfortable?

Oh, that’s for real. A hundred percent. The hotter drawing on the right, incidentally, is courtesy of the brother. This season is starting to smell awesome.

Gray’s Papaya for Obama

Having suffered significant primary defeats Tuesday night in Texas and Ohio, Senator Obama bounced back in a big way with a glowing endorsement from Hillary’s own backyard, as they say.

“When you’re hungry, or broke or just in a hurry!”

Three pretty awesome reasons to vote for Obama.

Gray’s Papaya—part-time editorialist and full-time purveyor of franks, fruit juice and shelter on a rainy night—has yet again made its voice heard on 72^nd and Amsterdam. Loudly, and somewhat vaguely. “We are ready to believe again!” proclaims Gray’s trademark window poster.

The slogan might need some work, especially here, in the unfair company of such classics as “Franks for your Business,” and “Famous Hot Doggery” (Anon.). Frankly (ahem), something as meaningless as being “ready to believe again” shouldn’t be anywhere in the same vicinity as the precise, concrete stimulus package of breakfast specials listed on the door. $1.95 with coffee? Yes we can.

Lack of forethought or eloquence can be forgiven in the realm of hot dog shop presidential campaigning, especially in a hot dog shop which, only weeks ago, had other hopes for the White House. We thought we remembered Gray’s Papaya having recently come out in favor of an independent Mayor Bloomberg presidential bid, and a quick dig around the Hot Stove photo archives has confirmed our suspicions. Nice work, girls!

We also vividly remember a 2001 Gray’s Papaya window display proclaiming Chris Rock a great New Yorker and a wonderful American for having filmed a scene inside the UWS institution for Down to Earth, a comedy in which Chris Rock’s character dies and takes over an old, rich, white man’s body. That’s why it was so difficult for him to get with Regina King.

What’s your excuse?

The normally trustworthy Hot Stove archivists failed in tracking down said Papaya poster. You’ll just have to take our word.

Dr. Matrin Luther King, Jr. Day

Happy MLK Day from the UWS to wherever you make your hot stove. It’s 22 degrees in the sun today at what once was MLK High School on 65^th and Amsterdam, so stay warm and keep the dream alive. It appears MLK officially graduated its last class in 2005, and due to poor performance, was converted to now house five smaller schools. We still see kids getting off the 1 train at 66^th, so we hadn’t actually noticed anything had changed—which may be a problem. In fairness, we also still check to see if we’re actually on a 9 train, and have some sweet skip-stop action in store, so our problems may run a little deeper. The Hot Stove research department is looking into the demise of MLK High School. More on that later in the week.

In light of the holiday and the school-closing, our message today is: awareness. Get some. It’s not hanging on the sale rack at the Gap. We’ve checked.

Stay Gold, St. Agnes. Stay Gold.

We just checked, and it turns out St. Agnes is not, in fact, the patron saint of homeless magazine readers, nor of choosing one’s own adventure. Surprised? You bet. But not nearly as surprised as we were to find out the St. Agnes Branch Library (Amsterdam and 81^st), our library, has closed for the next two years. That’s two years no one will be searching for the lost jewels of Nabooti. What the fuck.

First off, who’s ever heard of a public library renovation? Our library’s not good enough for the new jacks and their young? Well, guess what? It’s never been good enough for any of us. And we all turned out fine. So you end up writing a seventh grade book report on Carlito’s Way. The book. So what?

Secondly, what kind of psychopath was in charge of the masking tape here? You think a funky smelling reading area is bad news? Or plaster falling from the upstairs childrens library? How about the NYPL employing psychopaths? Oh, and no loitering. Not on those steps. No sir. Never.

Stay gold, St. Agnes. Those renovations are going to be a welcome boost for the neighborhood after year one of the Cyborg Wars.