Battery Park

Battery Park is a 25-acre (10 hectare) public park located at the Battery, the southern tip of the New York City borough of Manhattan, facing New York Harbour. The Battery is named for the artillery battery that was stationed there at various times by the Dutch and British in order to protect the settlements behind it. At the north end of the park is Pier A, formerly a fireboat station and Hope Garden, a memorial to AIDS victims. At the other end is Battery Gardens restaurant, next to the United States Coast Guard Battery Building. Along the waterfront, ferries depart for the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island. There is also a stop on the New York Water Taxi route btw the Statue of Liberty Ferry and Pier A.

To the northwest of the park lies Battery Park City, a planned community built on landfill in the 1970s and 80s, which includes Robert F. Wagner Park and the Battery Park City Promenade. Together with Hudson River Park, a system of greenspaces, bikeways and promenades now extend up the Hudson shoreline. A bikeway is being built through the park that will connect the Hudson River and East River parts of the Manhattan Waterfront Greenway. Across State Street to the northeast stands the old U.S. Customs House, now used as a branch of the National Museum of the American Indian and the district U.S. Bankruptcy Court. Peter Minuit Plaza abuts the southeast end of the park, directly in front of the South Ferry Terminal of the Staten Island Ferry.

Love Saves the Day

Love Saves the Day, a veteran vintage shop in the East Village, closed in January 2009 because of an exponential increase in its rent payments. Located at the corner of Second Avenue and Seventh Street, the store had been a community icon for almost 40 years. By 2011, the shop that used to house Love Saves the Day was turned onto a fast-food restaurant.

March 2015

On 26th March 2015, the entire block which included the shop was brought to the ground following a gas explosion. The explosion was caused by an illegal tap into a gas main. The explosion caused two deaths, injured at least 19 people, four critically, and the resulting fire completely destroyed three adjacent buildings at 119, 121 and 123 Second Avenue between East 7th Street and St. Mark's Place.

The three adjacent buildings at 119, 121, and 123 Second Avenue, on the northwest corner of East Seventh Street and Second Avenue, were completely reduced to rubble by the early morning of 27th March 2015. An adjacent building, 125 2nd Avenue, was severely damaged but remained erect. Residents of 144 apartments in 11 buildings were evacuated. Multiple residents and families in the impacted area lost their homes.

Four restaurants were completely destroyed, all located on the first floors in the collapsed buildings: the East Noodle ramen shop at 119 Second Avenue; Sushi Park, a Japanese restaurant at 121 Second Avenue; and two restaurants at 123 Second Avenue: Pommes Frites—a Belgian fries shop—and Sam's Deli. An adjacent storefront at 125 Second Avenue was badly damaged. A month later, many businesses in the neighbourhood were still recovering economically from the explosion, although some had remained closed more than a week after the explosion and six were destroyed. The Good Old Lower East Side, a nonprofit social organization in the neighborhood, organized fundraising and donation drives to help people affected by the explosion.

Two men in the Sushi Park restaurant were killed: Moises Ismael Locón Yac, a 27-year-old employee and Nicholas Figueroa, a 23-year-old customer on a date at the restaurant. They were initially reported missing and their bodies were found three days later on 29th March in the debris.

A building designed by Morris Adjmi Architects now occupies the site, erasing all history of the small shop called Love Saves the Day.

Audubon Ballroom

The Audubon Theatre and Ballroom, generally referred to as the Audubon Ballroom, was a theatre and ballroom located at 3940 Broadway at West 165th Street in the Washington Heights neighborhood of Manhattan, New York City. It was built in 1912 and was designed by Thomas W. Lamb. The theatre was known at various times as the William Fox Audubon Theatre, the Beverly Hills Theater, and the San Juan Theater, and the ballroom is noted for being the site of the assassination of Malcolm X on February 21, 1965. It is currently the Audubon Business and Technology Center and the Shabazz Center.

Danceteria

Danceteria was a well-known four-floor nightclub located in New York City which operated from 1980 until 1986. Throughout its history, the club had three different locations, the second, most famously at 30 West 21st Street, Manhattan, which served as the location for the disco scene in the film Desperately Seeking Susan.

The first Danceteria was opened on West 37th Street by German expatriate Rudolf Pieper and talent booker & club impresario Jim Fouratt. It catered to a diverse after-hours crowd coming from gay discos and the downtown rock clubs Mudd Club, Trax, TR3, and CBGB's. The club's DJs were Mark Kamins and Sean Cassette. According to Kamins, Danceteria "was an illegal Mafia club with no liquor license, but we sold drink tickets". The third and last location was at 29 East 29th St. (btw Madison and Park). DJ Johnny Dynell was also a Danceteria DJ for a while, and Howie Montaug ran and MCed at the alternative 'No Entiendes' evenings upstairs. Kamins credits the first Danceteria with being the first club to play videos and have two separate DJ's play 12 straight hours. It was reputed to be one of the centers of new wave music in New York and was frequented by musicians and other artists who later became famous, such as Madonna, Sade, Keith Haring, the Beastie Boys, and LL Cool J. For a time, there was also a satellite version of the club operated in the Hamptons on Long Island, NY.

Bleecker Street Cinema

The building at 144 Bleecker Street in New York City's Greenwich Village that would eventually house the Bleecker Street Cinema was originally built in 1832 as two rowhouses at 144 and 146 Bleecker Street. Placido Mori converted 144 into the restaurant Mori in 1883. Several scenes in Desperately Seeking Susan were shot there, as one of the characters (Dez, played by Aidan Quinn) works there as a projectionist. In Woody Allen's 1989 Crimes and Misdemeanors, the character played by filmmaker-star Allen visits the Bleecker Street Cinema to see Alfred Hitchcock's Mr. and Mrs. Smith and the 1943 musical Happy Go Lucky. It also appears in the film The Prince of Tides.