This Makes Me Cry

For years, I vowed to get up to the Bronx Zoo to experience the Holiday Lights Show, in which dozens of displays in the shape of countless animals light up the grounds. Last year I finally made it, and it exceeded my expectations. It was truly magical and filled me with boundless holiday spirit. I vowed to make it an annual tradition, bringing my son to the zoo every season.

I guess I won't be doing that.

The very hards news was reported today that the Zoo has decided to discontinue the light show, not to save money, but to lessen its carbon footprint.

In its place, the new Wild Winterland show will be a daylight festival featuring Clydesdale horse wagon rides, a petting zoo, ice carving, stilt walkers, puppets and craft workshops - but no lighted features....

The "green" spin on the Bronx tradition is an effort by the Wildlife Conservation Society, which runs the zoo, to reduce greenhouse gas emissions (such as carbon dioxide, or CO2) from its New York facilities.

Zoo officials said the Holiday Lights Show consumed about 3,500 kilowatts a night, equal to about 2 metric tons of CO2 emissions. That adds up to about 66 metric tons a season - as much as a three-person household produces in an entire year.

They're doing the right thing, of course,...I guess. But I can't convey how dispirited this change makes me. Walking through that zoo at night, with bright animal shapes dazzling my eyes at every turn, and Christmas tunes wafting through the trees caressing my ears, I experienced a sort of pure, dopey happiness, the kind I associate with my childhood Yuletides. I don't think ice sculptures and stilt walkers will quite will be quite as transporting.

A Good Sign: Wo-Hop Restaurant

On Mott Street in Chinatown. Been there since 1938.

Life on Mars Brightens Up

The Mars Bar has been cleaning itself up.

For years, the famously grizzled and grungy dive at the corner of 1st Street and Second Avenue in the East Village had a blood-red facade. Not exactly a sign, per se. That would be too formal, too button-down. Just a bucket of scarlet paint thrown at the area above the door and windows, with the words "Mars Bar" scrawled over it. (See below.)

I don't know when, but some time recently the gin mill decided to repaint. The new red-letters-on-white-background is distinctly more friendly and open than the previous look, and I'm not sure it's an entirely accurate image for the bar. The new sign says "Hey You! How 'Bout a Drink?" whereas the old one sort of screamed "Don't Even Think About It!" But who am I to deny the joint a new sense of sunny optimism? Maybe they're happy about Obama, too.

New F Train Lovers Will Have to Wait

F line habitués longing to ride the shiny new R160s that have been haunting the subway line for the past month or so are going to have to wait a bit longer.

I saw another one of the silver beauties snaking through the Carroll Street station today. I asked an MTA worker when the new cars were going to go into service, and he said, "Not for another four months." He explained that the trains have to be tested again and again, backward and forward, on every straightaway and curve of the entire F track before people are allowed to board them. Whaddaya know? The MTA really does care about our safety.

The Natural Course of Things

Now here's a business destined to asphyxiate under the avalanche of new movie-viewing technology. And, it has. Royal Video on Flatbush Avenue closed a year or so ago, moving to a smaller location further north on Flatbush. But, boy, it appears as if Royal was a king of the video-rental business during the years that trade thrived. Look at the size of that sign! And the boasts! "Over 11,000 movies." The space was touted as a future bank location at one point. Don't know what the future holds for the place now.

Whither P&G Cafe? Maybe Evelyn Nesbit's Home

Lost City is confused.

Just a couple days ago, I reported some news related by a reader that the wonderful old UWS bar that goes by the name of P&G Cafe was closing on Dec. 31 with little hope of reopening, aside from a possible future life at 86th and Amsterdam.

Now Ken Mac, regular commenter and fabulous blogger, tells me that he's been to the bar and the owner says the saloon will reopen at 78th and Columbus. Which, you know, is a little different from 86th and Amsterdam. Plus, the fantastic neon sign with be traveling with them. What goes on here? Both these men heard it from the horse's mouth, and on occasions not more than a week apart, too. Of course, P&G does serve liquor, which may account for some erraticness in these instances of storytelling.

UPDATE: Someone write in to ditto Ken Mac's account, saying P&G will take the Evelyn Lounge spot. I know that location. It's a basement place, as I recall, opposite the Museum of Natural History. The old building has a cool history involving Evelyn Nesbit. After Harry Thaw, Evelyn's jealous husband, shot and killed Stanford White in the "Crime of the Century," the couple retired in this building.

Yay, Red Hook Pool!

The New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission met on Nov. 18 to discuss some old building and if they were special or not. Everyone was focusing on the fate of the I.M. Pei's Silver Towers complex near NYU, which I personally find rather ghastly, even if they are historically significant. Not surprisingly, they made the cut.

But what's got Lost City excited is the unexpected crowning of the Parks Department's Sol Goldman Recreation Center and Pool, better known as the Red Hook Pool. I live near and have long loved this Depression-era pool. On a hot summer day, the scene at the Red Hook Pool epitomizes both innocent urban fun and democracy at their best. It's a great friggin' amenity and it is totally appreciated by its surrounding community. Good to see that the City bigwigs appreciate it, too.

Iconography on Bleecker

Something about this Bleecker Street storefront has always struck me as iconic. It's like a shop from central casting, circa 1940. So perfectly frozen is it in its mundane historical detail that it almost amounts to a living Photo League photograph. Too bad it's part of a brick building sagging so badly that its thisclose to falling down in a heap.

Nice detail: There's an "ATM Inside" sign in the window, and the ATM is outside the store.

Good News/Bad News for Carroll Gardens/Gowanus

You shout something about 473 times, and City Hall eventually gets the hint.

Everyone's favorite blueblood official, City Planning Commission Chair Amanda Burden, appeared in Gowanus last night to make the suprise announcement that "the Department will begin a rezoning study for Carroll Gardens with the aim of producing a draft rezoning proposal for this neighborhood and beginning public review by June of 2009."

Oh, you mean that thing that locals have been screaming for for two years, and have been constantly told was impossible in the near future because of the backlog of other proposals? That thing? Oh. Great. Thanks.

Of course, there's always a catch. The downzoning appears to be tied to the upzoning of 25 blocks of Gowanus that the Toll Brothers have been seeking for their mega-development. So a neighborhood gets saves, but only if we let rich guys get richer.

This Weird Place Used to Be Fun Once

This sad Flatbush Avenue structure with the weird Tudor-Castle-left-out-in-the-rain architecture apparently used to be a kind of nexus of fun some decades ago. (Which is not to say its current function as a Baptist Church is a drag, but...) Records show it was a sprawling eatery called the Midwood Restaurant in the years following World War II. Musta been a theme restaurant or something, judging from the Ye Olde England design. It was owned by Paul Padower and Eli Hahn, two young Air Force veterans. And during the Depression, the second floor contained a dance hall and cabaret space. Hot-diggety! The Church moved in in 2004, as far as I can tell.