Over the course of this silly blog’s almost …. Jesus … 14-year existence, I’ve posted multiple entries about doings over on West 8th Street, specifically the strip between Fifth and Sixth Avenues. Time was when this little patch of Greenwich Village covered a vast array of my needs and interests. From amazing record stores like It’s Only Rock ‘n’ Roll and the original Venus Records to mediocre ones like Revolution Records and Record Factory, there was no shortage of places to procure music. You also had Butterfly’s, should you ever be in search of just-the-right Iron Maiden or Black Flag t-shirt. Across the way was Postermat, which featured a dizzying array of crap --- poster, buttons, badges, décor – aimed squarely at teenage music jerks. There was also the suitably surreal art gallery, Psychedelic Solution and Flip, for all of your New Wavey fashion needs, the 8th Street Playhouse – which was the first place I ever saw “Repo Man” -- and the seemingly ageless Gray’s Papaya, once touted as Lou Reed’s favorite restaurant in New York City, at the end of the block. You also had the amazing video store TLA, and a massive B. Dalton Books (later Barnes & Noble) on the corner, across from Gray’s Papaya. There were also numerous places to buy shoes of every possible description.
In later years, when fortunes started to change for this once-busy byway, there were still places like Disc-O-Rama and Sleep of Reason Comics, but somewhat gradually, West 8th Street had less and less to offer me.
All of the concerns listed above, of course, are long, long gone here in 2019.
More recently, my kids became very fond of The Burger Joint (which left us about two years back), while I enjoy both the odd visit to endeavors like the 8th Street Wine Cellar, Arts & Crafts Beer Parlor and nouvelle-Italian eatery, Aunt Jake’s. My wife quite enjoys cocktails at the Marlton Hotel, every now and then, but I wouldn’t call that a particular favorite of mine.
In any case, blah blah blah… Who cares what I like, right? Fine. Regardless, as happened on University Place, and as is happening on the other side of town at St. Marks Place, West Eight Street is about to be blighted with its own enormous new luxury tower, slated to be plonked right down on the southeast corner of Eighth & MacDougal, finally putting to rest speculation of why that particular row of storefronts has been vacant for so long.
Whatever your memories of West Eighth Street are, get ready for this formerly signature byway of olde Greenwich Village to (further) decimated. Incidentally, the lovingly rendered painting of the intersection of MacDougal and West Eighth above comes courtesy of the great Ephemeral New York blog, and was painted by Alfred S. Mira in 1942. Below, meanwhile, as covered here a few times before, is Lowell Bodger's walk down West Eighth Street from the early 1970s.
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