The Corner

The Corner circa 1998.

The Corner being renovated as The Corner Cafe in October 2009.

The Corner Cafe in May 2011.

A closeup of the cornice in 1986.

The plaques on the side of the building.

The building in the '30s, with the 6th Avenue elevated train being taken down.

The Corner's interior in 1892.

The Corner in 1892.

The plaque commemorating Edison's presentation of the motion picture by the front door of Macy's.

The front door of Macy's on 34th Street.

A side door that once led to the theatre is long cemented over.

The interior of the theater on 23rd Street in the 1890s.

Another view of the long-sealed side door on 24th Street.

Whenever I'm walking down lower 6th Avenue, I always stop to take a look at a building on the corner of 24th Street with a colorful history.  Koster & Bial's "The Corner" was built in 1887 as a beer hall annex to the concert hall a block south.  The building is mostly unnoticed by passers-by today, but the upper levels have just recently received some renovations and cleaning, revealing it's original bright-orange brick color. 

Bryant's Opera House, built in 1870 next to the French Catholic Church of St. Vincent de Paul (where singer Edith Piaff married in the the 1960s), was one of the most popular nightlife spots on 23rd Street, which was the theatre district at that time, and featured the highly elaborate Bryant's Minstrels, who were known mostly for introducing New York City to many Stephen Foster songs such as "Dixie".  The concert venue was put up for sale in 1878 and bought by German-born business partners Albert Bial and John Koster, who previously ran a German-style beer garden and concert hall next store.  From the beginning, Koster and Bial were interested in the alcohol-distributing business, and side-stepped a law prohibiting its sale in theaters by replacing the curtain in front of the stage with a folding screen, thus making the place a restaurant that offered entertainment rather than a theatre that served alcohol.  Their business grew in popularity, and they hired German architects Herman J. Schwarzman and Albert Buchman to build a beer hall annex to the theatre a block north, which opened on January 25, 1887.  The four-story building with brownstone and terra cotta trim was dubbed "The Corner" and ornamented with a cornice on top and plaques with whimsical late-Victorian lettering that doubled as street signs.  They began running into trouble, though, when police busted a prostitution ring in the "cork room", an after-hours lounge that connected the theater to The Corner and only served champaign. 

The theater was forced to close in 1893, but by teaming up with Oscar Hammerstein that same year, their new music hall was opened on 34th Street and Broadway, in a more fashionable area.  The prominent duo's successful formula of variety acts and alcoholic beverages was once again a hit uptown, and in April of 1896 Thomas Edison introduced the United States to the motion picture in the new theater with the unveiling of his Vitascope.

However, Koster & Bial's Music Hall closed in 1902, and as the city's shopping district migrated uptown, Macy's latest building went up, and remains to this day the largest store in the world.  However, a plaque commemorating Edison's demonstration in 1896 can be seen by the door.  The old theatre on 23rd Street was demolished in 1924 and a Chase Bank now stands in its place, but the beer hall annex on 24th Street has quietly remained, with a number of businesses moving in and out, the most famous of these being Billy's Topless from 1970-2001.  It's featured in the 1998 movie "Rounders", where Ed Norton gets beat up by a former business partner (after Matt Damon gets into a fight with his girlfriend outside of McSorley's).  I added a link below.  Historians nostalgic for old New York remember the place as being a Chelsea fixture that never had any complaints from neighbors, didn't have a cover charge, and catered to regular girls who might not get hired in the city's more upscale clubs.  But Mayor Giuliani called the city's adult entertainment market a "corrosive institution", and worked hard to shut down these places, mainly in Times Square, but also holdovers in other parts of the city like this one.  A law was passed stating that an adult establishment could not be within 500 feet of an apartment building, school, or house of worship.

Now it houses The Corner Cafe, a bagel and pizza shop that pays tribute to the building's original name.  Next time you're in the Chelsea area, stop and check out this quaint old building with a very rich history.

The Chelsea Hotel

"The Corner" building on 24th and 6th.

The Chelsea Hotel on 23rd between 7th and 8th.

Another shot of the Chelsea Hotel.

Another shot of the Chelsea.

The historic Chelsea Hotel is up for sale again, and since the weather has been so fantastic lately, I decided to take a walk down there recently to take a look at it. In Chelsea you can find a number of great-looking old buildings from the late 19th century, many of which survived from when this area served as the most fashionable part of town. My mother has been reading a book about Robert Mapplethorpe's and Patty Smith's time spent there in the early '70s, when it was home to some of the most creative people staying in New York City.

The Chelsea Hotel was built on West 23rd Street between 7th and 8th Avenues in 1883 as the first co-op apartment building, and was the tallest building in New York City. It remained so for nearly twenty years until the Flatiron Building was completed as the tallest building in the world two-and-a-half blocks south in 1902. Once surrounded by Ladies' Mile and the theatre district, the co-op went bankrupt after only a few years when the city's theaters and shopping centers migrated uptown and the nation suffered a minor (comparatively speaking) recession. Abandoned for a few years, it reopened in 1905 as a hotel. It flourished for a few decades until being bankrupted again by the Great Depression, and in 1939 was purchased by Joseph Gross, David Bard, and Julius Krauss, who managed it as partners until the early '70s. With the passing of Gross and Krauss during this time, the management went to Bard's son, Stanley. In 2007, Stanley Bard was ousted by the board of directors and Dr. Marlene Krause, Julius Krause's daughter, and David Elder, grandson of Joseph Gross, replaced him with the management company BD Hotels, which has since been relinquished from ownership as well.

The hotel has been home to Mark Twain, O. Henry, William S. Burroughs, Leonard Cohen, Gore Vidal, Arthur Miller, Quentin Crisp, Tennessee Williams, Allen Ginsberg, Brendan Behan, Thomas Wolfe, Stanley, Kubric, Ethan Hawke, Dennis Hopper, Uma Thurman, Michael Imperioli, Jane Fonda, The Grateful Dead, Iggy Pop, Tom Waits, Janis Joplin, Rufus Wainwright and countless others. Charles R. Jackson, author of The Lost Weekend, about an alcoholic who frequents P.J. Clarke's on 55th and 3rd, committed suicide in his room in 1968. Dylan Thomas collapsed in his room here after drinking too much at the Whitehorse Tavern on Hudson and West 11th Streets. Jack Kerouac wrote On The Road while staying here. Sex Pistols bassist Sid Vicious allegedly murdered girlfriend Nancy Spungen here in 1978, but many believe someone else killed her, such as one of the two drug dealers who visited their room that night.

Artists such as Julian Schnabel, Jasper Johns, and Andy Warhol lived here, and as I walked in the lobby I saw that it was adorned with some pretty crazy-looking art. I particularly remember the giant horse-head painting that was to my left. This hotel became a safe-haven for artist and the like who didn't seem to fit into the mainstream. Fans of the hotel have always praised it for it's inclusiveness, and some feel it is the last remnant of a once bohemian city. Many people who lived and hung out here long to keep its artistic tradition alive, and hopefully whoever buys the hotel next will respect this.

I walked around the neighborhood a little more on that Sunday evening, taking in what the neighborhood has become, and what it used to be that all these New York City bloggers wistfully reminisce about. "Billy's Topless" on 24th and 6th was shut down by Giullianni ten years ago this month, and has been a a cafe for a long time now. The "Limelight Disco" on 20th and 6th is now the "Limelight Marketplace" and just about a month ago has started selling Grimaldi's pizza. Of course not that these changes are all bad (anyone who longs for the old city has to admit that Billy's Topless and the Limelight weren't the most wholesome places in the world), but, as usual, it's all about making a buck, and the common New Yorker gets left behind. The Jefferson Market Library on 10th and 6th is locked up for some reason (hopefully not for good). I'm assuming it's just for renovations. The sign on the door directs people to go the the Muhlenberg branch near the Chelsea Hotel, named for William Augustus Muhlenberg, the first pastor of the Limelight when it opened up as the Church of the Holy Communion in 1846. When he donated his collection of books it became the core of that library. Anyway, my dogs were barking by the end of the night, so it was time to head on home until my next rambling.