SPOTTED:

Just a few weeks after the opening of her boutique, Dash, Kim Kardashian was back in NYC yesterday to launch her new jewelry line at the Bebe store in SoHo. Kim Kardashian for Bebe features both affordable and trendy pieces with inspiration from around the world. Tweet This

Oh the treasures you can find hidden in Bobst

Marvin J. Taylor kind of resembles Hulk Hogan and is as dedicated to the history of punk as a six year old boy is about his lego collection. Taylor is the director of Fales Library and Special Collections at New York University. “I’m living proof that you could take a dissolute childhood turn it into a career,” he said.

Fales Library is a part of Bobst that I didn’t know existed and is located on the third floor. It contains over 200,000 volumes of the country’s rare book collection. It is composed of the Downtown Collection, the Food and Cookery Collection and the general Special Collections. The Downtown Collection is the largest collection of archival materials of the Downtown New York art scene anywhere and the only one in an academic library.

My Reporting Downtown class toured the Downtown Collection with Taylor last Thursday morning. Not that the collection was boring, but I didn’t appreciate it as much because I wasn't familiar with the names or cultural references.

One of the current exhibitions is a tribute to that church that NYU students walk past everyday on their way to class. The exhibit takes a look at Judson Memorial Church between 1954-77, a site for the first safe abortion clearing house, various social movements of the 1960s and home of the first gay support group.

Judson Memorial Church


Among what we saw was a recording of Yvonne Reiner's “The People’s Flag Show,” a 1964 modern dance performance in the Judson Memorial Church, with the dancers only wearing American flags over the front of their otherwise nude bodies. The press showed up and were outraged. “I think it’s absolutely brilliant,” Taylor said. “How liberating it must be to do this.”

Carolee Schneemann’s Meat Joy was another delight. It was like a sexualized synchronized swimming performance on stage. Undoubtably, very uncomfortable to watch with my class. It’s all about the body movements and the way the men are positioning the women. Partially clothed dancers writhed on stage. Women are sticking raw fish between their legs and men are putting raw chickens in their pants. “This totally changed dance and turned dance into performance,” said Taylor.

Moving the tour along, Taylor showed us what he considers “the best collection of punk rock anywhere.” I’m not into punk, but punk has certainly influenced fashion and many aspects of today’s culture. As Taylor put it, “[Punk] is so many things to so many other people.” The East Village is the birthplace of punk; what a better place than Greenwich Village to preserve these relics for artifactual value. "We believe the physicality of the object is just as important as the text in understanding the work," said Taylor. The primary sources are impressive, including the Richard Hell papers, the first copy of Punk Magazine from Jan. 1976 and a priceless interview tape with performer John Sex duping the interviewer.



Fales Library is open to all NYU students, faculty, and serious researchers. Fales is an example of a passion turned into something that all can enjoy, as well as an impressive documentation of the 70s, 80s and 90s in lower Manhattan. Tweet This

What's Good in SoHo for the Week of Nov. 1

The sidewalks of Broadway below Houston were extra packed with shoppers on the hunt for last minute Halloween costumes, but look past the crowds and you’ll see a number of stories emerged over the past week. Black Friday started early, a scandal surfaced among food vendors, Nordstrom announced plans to expand to SoHo, and Babeland encouraged people to get out and vote.


Love is love. Chelsea's Gay Men's Health Crisis center’s "Art & AIDS: Loving Life," an annual exhibit, ran last week at the Leslie/Lohman Gay Art Foundation in SoHo. This exhibit provided an outlet for gay and lesbian artists to express themselves through art. Read more


Last Thursday, Nordstrom announced that 350 West Broadway will be the future location of a new non-profit store that will have a different name and will not have any ties to the brand.


To get shoppers out of a sluggish shopping mood and in the holiday spirit, retailers introduced Black Friday deals last week and are promoting early this holiday season. The New York Times has the scoop on the deals.



A New York State of mind? The Post investigated SoHo food vendors who sleep in their cart to have a prime spot on the street. However, the city Department of Health requires that vendors clear the streets and store the carts where they are cleaned. Grody.

SoHo may have a new nickname. Known to be an artsy and fashionable neighborhood, SoHo is being called a “silicon alley” for new design and technology businesses opening up in the area. Wanderfly is just one of many new tech-savvy businesses to open up shop. Read about it

Babeland’s SoHo and LES locations gave away free vibrators to anyone who hit the polls on election day. Tweet This

IT'S ALL POLITICS; A DAY AT THE POLLS

I don’t follow politics as often as I should. Especially during midterm elections when all I’m really thinking about are my midterms. Before a day full of class and work, I got up while it was still dark outside to check out the polls for the first time on Election day. What I learned: if you want to be a journalist, be prepared to get rejected.

Polling site 10982, one of SoHo’s polling centers, is located at the Children’s Museum at 182 Lafayette Street between Broome and Grand streets. At 8:00 AM, temperatures outside were frigid.

It was weird to walk into the colorful museum for children that was turned into a makeshift poll site. I felt like it was a trip to the DMV, with multicolored walls. A tri-fold describing how to vote using the new system stood by the door, however, no one paid any attention to it.

There were six people present upon my arrival. I introduced myself to one of the poll workers right away as an attempt to get some quotes. She had a loud and raspy, but surprisingly chummy, voice that you wouldn’t expect to come out of such a gruff-looking woman. She told me that I could get as many quotes as I wanted and would even give me a picture “for my newspaper.” Referring to the new vote scanner she said, “Would you look at that machine? It looks like an industrial garbage can. $50,000.”

A woman named Pat, (she wouldn’t give me her last name) came over to me on a power-trip and said that I couldn’t ask any questions and I couldn’t speak to voters. A female police officer guarded the door so I couldn’t even get voters on their way out.

Instead, I observed the people coming in and out. It took about 10 minutes from start to finish to vote. Thirty-six people voted between 8:00 and 9:00 AM. “SoHo is light,” said one poll worker. “It’s not as heavy as others.” Fifty people came in between 9:00 and 10:00 AM. This site seemed to get many people who appeared to be 55 and older as well as the handicapped. Some voters had their children with them. Schools were closed for the day. Others were accompanied by their dogs.

I heard people chatting about the new polling procedures as they exited. New doesn’t always equal better. “I like the old way better,” said one man. “I was used to it.”

“Things are too small on the ballot,” said one older-looking woman. “The lighting was horrible.”

While waiting for his wife to vote, one man chuckled, “There was a third side? I never turned it over.” Tweet This

I did such a "New York" thing

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As I was unsuccessfully getting people to talk to me for my issue piece, I resorted to sitting in Starbucks and bothering people who were enjoying a cup of coffee to get quotes. People in coffee houses like to talk. This particular Starbucks was crowded because the weather was lousy and there weren't many tables to sit at. About twenty minutes into my experiment, a gorgeous woman who looked like a model approached me and asked if she could sit at my table. I had an extra chair and no one was sitting with me, so I decided to share my table. I used the opportunity to ask if she would answer a few questions for me. She turned out to be the nicest one that I spoke with and I ended up giving her my contact information because she may have some connections for me in fashion journalism. Tweet This

For the fashion conscious...

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and for those who have a love affair with all things concerning fashion, check out http://ny.racked.com/.
This blog covers what's going on in retail all over New York City and even breaks down news by neighborhood. Get updates about your favorite stores and breaking news about sample sales, special in-store events, products to drool over, store reviews and cool places to check out. A special "Street Scene" section is devoted to fashionality found on the bodies of New Yorkers around the city. You can vote on what you like and what you think looks horrendous, and even get some ideas for your own outfits. This blog is perfect for keeping up on what's going on in the retail-dense areas of the city such as SoHo. Tweet This

Time warp: An extensive presentation about firefighting in New York

One of my friends has a thing for men in uniform. She’s met some hot firefighter friends throughout the years, so I decided to check out the New York City Fire Museum this afternoon, hoping to meet some of my own eye candy.

The Fire Department City of New York (FDNY) is the largest fire department in the United States and has been around since 1648. As a journalist, it’s important to have an understanding of this organization’s connection with the city. The Museum preserves materials from the history of firefighting in New York. It is located in a renovated 1904 firehouse at 278 Spring Street, between Hudson and Varick Streets in SoHo.

I was surprised when I walked into an empty museum, apart from the three couples there besides myself and a few of the Museum’s staff coming in and out.

You first walk into a small, hokey gift shop with FDNY T-shirts, toys and coffee mugs. There is also a wooden box for a $5 suggested donation (but you don't have to pay if you don't want to.) Guided tours, led by members of the FDNY’s Education unit, are available to groups with a minimum of 10 individuals.

The experience does get better as you wander through two floors of pretty remarkable collections, including a tribute to 9/11.

There is a large, main room on the first floor with fire-related artifacts from the late 18th century to the present. You can find several large engines in this room, including a horse-drawn buggy that was used before fire trucks to reach fires.



A hour-long video gives you an idea of what it is like to be a firefighter. I didn’t watch the whole thing, but I still got the impression that members of the FDNY are devoted to their jobs.

I was interested in seeing the September 11 Memorial after visiting the Tribute WTC Visitor Center with my journalism class. The Museum’s two-room exhibit focuses on the firefighters that lost their lives on 9/11. There is a wall of tiles with pictures of each of the 343 fallen members of the FDNY. Visitors can watch a computer presentation of some unbelievable photos from that day, view glass cases filled with remains, such as a piece of one of the planes, a camera that was left behind, a firefighter’s lost helmet. The Museum collected patches from firefighters who came from all over the country to help with relief efforts, which are displayed on two huge boards.



The second floor contains more artifacts from different time periods– helmets, uniform parts, parade hats, tools, hand pumped fire engines and early fire apparatus.

The third floor loft is a space that can be rented out for parties and special events.

Something you should note: The Museum is open Tuesday through Saturday from 10:00 AM to 5:00 PM and on Sunday from 10:00 AM to 4:00 PM. It is closed on Mondays and major holidays.

The Museum also runs a fire safety education program to teach participants how to prevent fires and what to do should one occur. For more information, check out the Museum’s website:
http://www.nycfiremuseum.org/ Tweet This