Thursday, February 17th, 2011

Night Shift Workers At Penn Station @11:28 pm
Midtown
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First off I want to thank some fellow bloggers for helping to spread the word about MAD. I got a shout out from Jeremiah’s Vanishing New York and I thank him not only for that, but for the mention about the 365 blog and the Q. and A. he did with me last year, he’s got a great blog and it meant a lot to me to be featured on there. And speaking the 365 blog, if you followed that last year you’ll know both these nest two bloggers: My buddy Tim "Clacky" Clack just started his debut blog and it’s called, Tales From The Bunt’s Side, which refers to his exclusive bar he just built in his back yard. down under in Australia. He wrote me up yesterday in this post and I thank him for that! I can’t wait to hit Bunt Custer's Bar someday, but in the meantime we all have this wonderful blog. And last, but certainly not least my friend Fat Al over at the fine blog The Half Empty Glass also devoted a post about MAD along with a video. Which video was it? Well, you’ll just have to check their post right here: THEG. Thanks to all three and if you haven’t seen or read their blogs, you should do so right now...and then come back here of course! Okay on with the blog.
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I started working the night shift in 1986. The day before I started I wondered how much I would hate it. After a couple nights I realized I loved working nights and I vowed never to work the day shift again. And I haven’t, except for a few weeks out of the year when I have to fill in for someone on the day shift who’s on vacation. And believe me, when I do have to work the day shift it’s as painful as a Tabasco sauce enema.

I don’t know why more people don’t want to work at night, especially here in New York where there’s so many places to go to at off hours. I’ve never been a morning person and I don’t know how most people stand getting up anywhere between 6 am and 9 am every single day for work. It’s so early and bright...sunshine...echh! When you work nights you can sleep in, drink at weird hours of the morning, it’s usually quiet in apartment buildings and the whole mood at work and everywhere else is a little looser and kookier as the night rolls into morning and the hours turn from big to small.

In a way I’m glad most people don’t want to work nights, it makes it that much easier for me to get a job. Although when you request to work nights, you usually get a weird reaction at the start. When I’ve told prospective employers that I want to work the night shift, they usually do a double take and then squinch their eyes and give me a look like I’m the second coming of Travis Bickle. I once had an interview with the owner of a pre-press print shop and he told me that he’d hire me, but he said, “You have to realize one thing, I don’t foresee you getting on the day shift for years.”

I promptly replied, “Well if you put me on the day shift, I’ll quit. I don’t want to work daytime hours.”

His eyes got narrow and he gave me the son of Travis Bickle look and said almost in a frightened tone, “What? Are you some kind of a fucking vampire or something? Nobody wants to work the night shift!”

Anyway, that brings me to tonight’s after dark journey. I thought once a week I’d go somewhere and take photos and talk to people working the night shift right here in New York City to give some credit to kindred spirits of the night. Tonight I thought I’d wander over to Penn Station to take some night shift portraits. It’s open all night and there’s a good variety of places open late to go and when you’ve got a variety of places, there’s a variety of people, which is just what I want.

Tonight we're going in the opposite direction of the last two evenings, so you get to see the other side of the sidewalk outside of where I work.

This is a couple doors down from where I work. I love how they keep the "On Demand Printing" sign on while they're closed. Irony at its finest hour.

And we turn the corner and Penn Station is just a block away.

And here we are, Penn Station at 11:28 pm in the evening.

Okay, I wrote about this on the 365 blog, but I'm going to write about it again, because it's something that has bugged me ever since I moved to New York and have been traveling here at Penn Station. See the woman on the left? She just pushed me aside as she hurriedly runs down the escalator. What's wrong with that, you may wonder, she's just in a hurry to catch her train to Bumblefuck, New Jersey, why be upset over that? Well normally I wouldn't be, but there's a full set of stairs right next to the fucking escalator! If you want to run to catch your stupid-ass train, take those and leave the escalator for those of us who aren't in such a goddamned hurry!

And what kills me is the stairs are more than twice the size of the escalator. Yet it never fails that people choose the escalator to run down. Life is never easy.

Most of stores on the first floor close early, so we'll go to the lower level. Thankfully this escalator is people-free.

And here we are in the underground of Penn Station.

Here's a crew of Long Island commuters all staring at the Long Island train schedule in commuter zombie style.

Whenever someone from Long Island asks why I choose to live in the city when I could live there a lot cheaper, I think of standing in Penn Station and staring at this every night and I'm happy to pay Manhattan rent and live in a tiny apartment that I can to walk to work from.

Okay, here's a long string of stores open late. Let's go meet some of the night shift workers at Penn Station.

I like the fact that Penn Station has a late night book store, so I thought that would be the first stop.

This is Ryan who runs the cash register here. He told me he's worked here for 8 months and he gets off work around midnight, so his shift was just about over. He said he likes working the night shift because that's when all the manic depressives come out. He read me like a book, which is why he probably works there.

After leaving Penn Books I ran into Brian outside. Brian's worked as a custodian for Penn Station for 10 years. He's a nice guy and said he's happy to have his job.

Here's the Papaya hot dog counter, let's see who's toiling away in the midnight hour here.

Meet Medhat, he's a true overnight worker who told me his shift ends at 6 in the morning.

just a few doors down is the Rose Pizza and Pasta restaurant, let's check that out.

Samuel and Crystal work behind the counter at the restaurant. Their shift ends at 2 am and they, like everyone else I've met tonight said they like working evenings here. Nice to know I'm not the only person who prefers to work on the other side of the workday.

Hellooo...what have we here? Why it looks like...a bar! Deja vu!

There's a decent crowd in here, but I spy a seat, let's go snag it. Holy shit, I'm reverting back to the 365 guy!

And here's Nev, the friendly bartender who happily serves me up a beer. Nev told me he's worked here for five years and said he loves working nights. His shift ends at one in the morning. He told me he sleeps in every single day. Ah, that's the beauty of the night shift. Sleeping during rush hour.

After my beer I went outside and this gentlemen had just started performing for a crowd of travelers.

He's a great musician and was playing a reggae tune.

After I took this shot he finished the song and I bought one of his CD's for five bucks. His name is Jahstix and you can check out his website here: JAHSTIX.

Okay, that's all for tonight. Time to take the escalator up...

And back out into the night. Goodnight everybody and see you tomorrow after dark.

Penn Station
Between 31st and 33rd St. and btw. 7th and 8th Ave.
Open 24 hours

Further reading: Transit Hub, New York Architecture, The Bowery Boys, City Room

Nightcap

I’m just about a moonlight mile down the road.

Wednesday, February 16th, 2011

53rd and 3rd @ 12:37 am
Midtown/East
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Before I start tonight’s After Dark episode, I really want to thank everyone who stopped by and those of you that left comments. It was really a nice way to start this blog. I hope you continue to enjoy it. I got a couple shout-outs yesterday, EV Grieve and the Neighborhoodr both put links to MAD and I thank them and everyone else who’s helped to spread the word. Speaking of the Neighborhooder, Matt Rosen who runs and curates that East Village blog also helps Ray from yesterday’s post with his online presence and asked if I would put up a few links for people to check out. And I’m happy to do so. If you enjoyed yesterday’s post and would like a memento from Ray’s Candy Store in the East Village, you can get one from: The Official Ray's Candy Store Clothing & Accessories Shop on CafePress. All the profits from sales in the store go to Ray’s and will help keep him in business. You can also follow Ray’s Candy Store on Twitter, just click the link right here: Ray’s Candy Store on Twitter. Okay, now on to tonight’s destination.
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Certain circumstances happen in your life as you get older and it can change your whole perspective about something. The Ramones first album did that for me, it completely changed the way I listened and heard music.

It came out when I was a senior in high school. And I had just turned eighteen-years-old, the perfect age for an introduction to all things Ramone. I remember I had read a review of their first album, probably in Rolling Stone or Creem magazine, my two bibles at the time and if I remember correctly, the review said something like they sounded like the Beach Boys cranked up to the gills on speed. Well, I liked the Beach Boys and I loved speed back then, so I was sold. Then I looked closer at the album cover that was printed with the review. This band looked like a combination of back-alley street thugs and four guys who’ve just been sprung out of the looney-toon bin. They had long dishbowl haircuts, black leather motorcycle jackets, ripped up and falling apart jeans and tennis shoes. And the tallest one had a certain Lurch-like quality to him. They didn’t look like any other band I’d ever seen.
I immediately ran downstairs and asked my mom if I could use her car to drive over to the record store. She said okay so I zoomed to the store, found the album, bought it and raced back up to my room. I peeled off the shrinkwrap and breathed in that new album smell that I loved. I put the album on and about 23 seconds into “Blitzkrieg Bop” my mouth was hanging wide open. I had never heard anything like this in my fucking life. The songs were fast and short and the music had a rat-a-tat-tat quality that was really catchy. While it definitely was a unique, new and original sound, there was something vaguely familiar, but I couldn’t put my finger on it. Finally, after about ten spins on my turntable it hit me: It sounded a little bit like vintage ‘60’s/70’s bubblegum music. And I love ‘60’s/70’s bubblegum music. Of course once I turned 15 or 16 I pretended to hate it because it wasn’t cool to like it, but I always have had a love for that genre of music and I still do. I also liked hard rock and garage rock and this was like a marriage of the three. This thinking was confirmed when I read the book, “Please Kill Me,” and Joey Ramone is quoted as saying that the Ramones’ goal was to be as good as the Bay City Rollers.

The other thing that was great and different about this album was the lyrics. They were different and they were funny. Some of the subject matter included Nazi’s, sniffing glue, being afraid to go down to the basement and one song called, “Beat on the Brat," which had the lyric, “Beat on the brat with a baseball bat.” It was like the equivalent of a musical dead baby joke! I loved it and that album turned me on to punk rock and really changed the way I thought about music. Let’s just say I filed my Emerson Lake and Palmer albums away and never listened to them again.

One of the songs from the album I didn’t really understand at the time and the name of it was “53rd and 3rd.” I got the Vietnam reference in it and that the character in the song kills somebody with a razor blade but I didn’t really get what it was all about. Years later I read that Dee Dee Ramone wrote it and it was about a section of Manhattan called the loop, where young male prostitutes also known as chicken hawks hung out trying to turn tricks for cash. This area was the corner of 53rd and 3rd. I don’t think Dee Dee ever admitted it, but it’s been widely reported that back in the day he would prostitute himself out for drug money and that the tune was semi-autobiographical.

I was listening to the song the other day and realized that I’ve lived here for close to 18 years now and I can’t ever recall being at the corner of 53rd and 3rd. So I thought it would be a fun after dark journey to walk there after work and see what’s happening over at the corner of 53rd and 3rd these days. So...hey, ho, let’s go!

And here we go, off into the night. I'm going to take pictures along the way because sometimes the journey is just as much fun as the destination.

O'Reilly's Pub, memories from a blog gone by! Hard to believe that was over a year ago. Time flies when you go to 365 bars in 365 days.

This one's for you Gidget. (Inside joke.)

Become your future you...well, I just got a mental picture of me at 85-years-old in an adult diaper, so thanks, but I think I'll just stick to the regular aging process.

Wow, it's really deserted out, I can't wait for the weather to get nice, this is a little creepy walking around New York when the main streets are empty. It looks like a parade of zombies could appear at any moment.

Porn star name on a luggage store alert!

I don't know what's multiplying faster in New York, bedbugs or these 99 cent/$1.00 shitty pizza joints.

And here we are! The infamous corner of 53rd and 3rd! I brought along a picture of the Ramones and I thought I'd get some characters hanging around the block to pose with it on this corner. Let's go find some people.

Hmm, nobody over here...

Just a lot of cars and traffic over here...

Got nothing on that corner...

There's Duane Reade, but he doesn't have any arms to hold the picture, so that would be a little awkward. That's the danger of doing something like this, sometimes nature works against you and you have to improvise. Let's keep looking.

Hey, hey, hey...what's this behind me? It's a late-night Halal food cart, you know somebody's in there, let's go check it out.

And sure enough, I found this nice gentlemen setting up his cart. His name is Abraham. Let's see if he'll pose with the photo.

Abraham said he knew of the Ramones and would be happy to pose with the picture, but shit, that light got in the way...time for take two...

This one's a little better, but it's a little too far away. As you can see from the look on Abraham's face, sometimes it's a little painful to work with me.

And there we go, a winning shot to close the night on. Abraham is at this corner every night and he works all through the night to the morning, so when you're close by 53rd and 3rd, stop by his cart and get a bite to eat. Alright, from Abraham, Martin and the ghost of the Johns on 53rd and 3rd, goodnight everybody and see you tomorrow after dark!

Further Reading: New York Magazine, Wikipedia, Super Seventies.

Nightcap

53rd and 3rd
You're the one they never pick
53rd and 3rd
Don't it make you feel sick?

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Bonus Jaws Art!
MAD commenter Jaws sent in this welcome back art to mark the start of this blog. Very nice, Jaws, thanks buddy! If you’d like to wear some of Jaws’ art, check out his online store here: Jaws The Cabbie Store.

Tuesday, February 15th, 2011

Ray’s Candy Store @12:03 am
Lower East Side, NYC

Well, here we go with the debut post from my new blog, “Marty After Dark.” Anybody out there? Or did I lose everyone with my month absence? I know how fickle everyone on the internet can be, so we’ll see who made it over here. Anyway, the explanation for what this is all about and what I’m going to be doing can be found right here: What’s Going On. If you’ve stumbled here and don’t know who I am and are curious, you can read all about me here: About Me (I’m a legend in my own mind!)

Big thanks to “Boris” for a spectacular job on designing the Marty After Dark banner. As always, “Boris” was able to put together an iconic piece of art that really makes the page come alive, thanks, Daddio! And my friend and the coolest DJ in the world, Gidget, once again set up a facebook fan page for the site and she and “Boris” will be maintaining it. You can click on the button over on the right, or just click here to be part of the fan page—Marty After Dark on facebook  And you can check out Gidget and “Boris” on Woody radio, here’s the schedule page: Woody Radio Schedule.

So now that you know what’s going on, it’s time for our first late night adventure. Since today was Valentine’s day, I thought it only fitting to venture out to a candy store that never closes. And this isn’t just any candy store, it’s a place that’s been on the block on Avenue A for over thirty years—Rays Candy Store, right across from Tompkins Sqare Park. The owner is Ray Alvarez a man who just celebrated his 78th birthday, sadly I missed that party, check out the photos here: Slum Goddess at Ray’s birthday party. So since this being Valentine’s Day, I thought we’d make a late night visit to Ray’s candy store, wish him a belated happy birthday, a happy Valentine’s Day and maybe get an egg cream soda. Come on, let’s get out there in the dark and get this blog moving already!

Okay, here we go off on the maiden voyage of Marty After Dark.

We'll go up 6th Avenue to 34th Street to catch the F train to the Lower East Side. Goddamn, it's windy and chilly out here tonight, I can't wait for spring to be sprung.

A lonely street vendor waits for customers that probably won't be showing up on this cold and windy evening.

And here we descend into the bowels of the subway system in Manhattan.

Hi asshole!

Hot damn, only about a three minute wait and here's the F train.

Hey look who's our neighbor, the asshole who can't stop texting. He never looked up once during the whole trip.

And we're here. We'll exit on Houston Street.

There's not a lot of people out tonight, even though it's Valentine's Day. For me, February is one of the worst months in New York. Kind of a cold and lonesome month. I bet there's people at Ray's though, let's soldier on.

Katz's deli is closed for the evening, but the sign is still lit.

And here we are, Ray's Candy Store, there's ATM here if you're still with us Joey D!

Another angle of the quaint candy store.

Here's some of the outside signage.

And here's some more.

I chopped off the bottom of this sign, but it says, "Everything Made With Love." Nice.

Let's go in and check it out.

And here he is, the man himself, Ray Alvarez. Ray's a really nice guy and personally greets everyone who comes in. He just turned 78-years-old and works the candy store from 8pm to 10am seven days a week. He told me it keeps him young. And he is the youngest and friendliest 78-year-old I've ever met.

There's plenty of drink choices in here, but I already knew what I had to try, one of Ray's famous egg creams.

As soon as I order Ray fly's into action. He pours...

And he mixes.

And here's the frothy final result and it's delicious!

Here's some signs and the hot dog cooker in the front window of Ray's Candy Store.

And some people have gathered inside at the counter. The crowd changes every five to ten minutes in here and it's an eclectic mix of people that pass through the door.

Here's Bob with Ray. Bob said he's been coming here so long he's not sure when he first started venturing to Ray's. He got a hot dog to go.

This couple got a small order of fries.

And here's Ray serving the fries up. Yeah, that's the small order, I can't imagine what the large one looks like!

Here's some of the candy housed behind the front counter.

As you can see from the signs, there's about anything here that your appetite desires.

Obligatory Ray's mirror shot! Some things I just can't let go.

More signs in the back of the store.

Here's a sign you could eat off of. How handy is that?

Here's some "Save Ray's" pictures. About a year ago, Ray was almost evicted from this space. He fell behind in rent and the landlord was ready to boot him out. The neighborhood rallied around Ray and raised some money to help him with his rent and thankfully he's still here.

Ray's garnered a lot of press through the years and it's plastered on the walls in between the sandwich signs.

Here's a piece from the Villager on a benefit for Ray's.

Here's an article on the wall about photographer Bob Arihood who's documented Ray's and the neighborhood with his photography. Check out his blog here: Nadie Se Conoce.

A couple of girls shouted hi to Ray in the window and asked if he needed any helpers for the night, so he invited them in.

And here they are, from left, Molly, Ray and Ilana.

They took off their coats and Ray taught them the fine art of making an egg cream.

Ray shows them the next step.

And here they sample the finished product.

Now Ray let's them try to make one on their own.

And here they are with the fruits of their labor, some fries and an egg cream. After this, they helped wait on people that came in the store.

Including Shivan and Molly who got an order of fries.

Paul and Claudia stopped in as I was getting ready to hit the road.

And a parting shot of the loneliest wiener in town. Goodnight everybody, see you tomorrow, after dark!

Ray's Candy Store
113 Ave. A (Near 7th St.)
Lower East Side

When you enter Ray’s it’s a little bit like going into a time warp. It’s a small shop with a well-worn light blue counter to lean into and suck back an egg cream and chomp into a hot dog with cheese, onions and mustard. It’s got an old world clubhouse atmosphere to it that couldn’t be duplicated if you tried. And of course there’s Ray, a charming, likeable one-of-a-kind guy running a one-of-a-kind store. There’s no menus, you have to look around at the hand-painted signs that hang on the walls in between faded newspaper items and assorted bric-a-brac to decide what you want to order. I like a place that makes you look around, it’s a reminder that you should do that more often in life. While I was in there nobody was talking on a cell phone or texting and it brought back a memory I had while doing the 365 bar crawl last year. I had approached a couple who were seated at a table and were busy texting while I told them what I was doing.

They put down their iPhones to pose for a photo and I gave them a business card and the twentysomething woman looked at it and made a face and said, “Eww, you’re on Earthlink?”

“Yeah, why, something wrong with that?” I asked wondering why she would care who my email provider was.

“It’s, like, so yesterday!” She said laughing and picking up her iPhone. Her companion smirked and was already back to the texting.

“Well, I’m all about yesterday,” I explained, “I’ve seen the future and it’s one long text that says, ‘nothing’ a thousand different ways.”

I don’t think they heard me, they were too deep into their texts to care, their faces were colored with a whiter shade of blank. I went back to the bar and had a beer. If you’re all about the yesterdays, stop in at Ray’s and get a sandwich, some fries and an egg cream and help keep a slice of yesterday alive and well on Avenue A in New York City. Ray will love it if you do and so will the neighborhood. Me too.

Further reading:EV Grieve, NY Observer, Jeremiah’s Vanishing New York and Nadie Se Conoce.

And you can help support Ray and his candy store by buying one of the fine products emblazoned with his logo at his online store, check it out: Ray's Candy Store Online Cafe.

NIghtcap

"If you close the door, I'd never have to see the day again."