The Miracle of 86th Street
For reasons I do not understand, the intersection of 86th Street and Lexington has managed to fend off the plague of crappy, modern, anonymous Cemusa newsstands that have swept the city in the last three years, thanks to Bloomberg signing a contract with an urban architecture firm—in Spain.
There are three newsstands at this crossroads, and each of them is gloriously old school. Messy, real, gritty and very New York. The rest of the intersection is awful—modern apartment and office towers and chain stores (Game Stop, Barnes & Noble, Best Buy, H & M) everywhere. (There used to be a wonderful little donut shop on the southeast corner which I still mourn.) But the newsstands almost save it.
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3 comments:
You know what I really miss? That donut place that is now a bank of america. We used to get donuts and the sunday paper . . .
I remember living there in the 80's when you would still see hookers on 86th Street.
The Newsstand in front of Game Stop on the southwest corner of 86th & Lex might be my favorite one in the whole city. They have an awesome collection of papers, magazines, and candy. Everything about that stand says 'real New York'.
Contracting to have every newsstand in Manhattan changed over (not even factoring in how cold, boring, and ugly the new ones are) is one of the most ridiculous things this city has done in the last 15 years - and we all know that list is pretty damn long.
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