September 24, 2009
We Regret to Inform You That Love Will Not Save the Day
The big story on East 7th Street these days is the opening of Thom Mayne’s new student center for Cooper Union, on Third Avenue. It’s a pretty wacky extravagance and it replaces a deadly dull building beloved by nobody. A block away, on the corner of Second, this story is reversed. Love Saves the Day, the iconic kitsch storefront that’s been a local landmark for decades, has given way to a humorless brown excrescence. New York is losing its history one shop at a time, a sad attrition that is the subject of my new essay in Print magazine, which doubles as a review of the new book Store Front: The Disappearing Face of New York, by James and Karla Murray. One of its many lessons: You wanna survive in this town? Buy the building.
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By Mark Lamster
