More 70s, more Shamus

While engaged in my unlikely Burt-in-Brooklyn research endeavors, I came across a '73 documentary, TV News: Behind the Scenes, a day in the life of a local, WABC news production team.  Events of the day include a water main break, anti-war demonstrations (a youthful Geraldo Rivera on the scene!), and the ever-dapper Mayor Lindsay doing his bit for city film making, at a promo appearance for Shamus.  The interview snippets with the actors make for some strange viewing. Cannon perfects a icily glazed insincerity, and the female reporter assigned to the story is clearly, er, thrown off balance by the gum-chewing flirtiness and intimate proximity of trench-coat clad Reynolds.  Catch the Shamus-themed action around 4:17.

Burt, Once More

Of course, we must include B movie Shamus in Canal Month.  A renactment of the chase scene on the banks of the canal would be more fun by far than reciting Virginia Woolf's The Waves. Whole Foods, of course, would make the logical (and geographically accurate) replacement for Riveredge Exports. Panic in the aisles!! Here's Burtfest!, from 2015.

Late last year, in late night TV junk land (Grit!), I ran into the 70s Burt Reynolds movie, Shamus, I'm no Burt fan, but this one had a local setting, with Burt as a private eye whose base of operations was a pool hall on Fifth.  I didn't get to see the whole thing, and looking for it later, could only find the film available on dubious looking online sites.  Weighing the prospect of more Burt on Fifth against the likelihood of computer viruses, sanity prevailed.  But I wanted to see the whole thing, and finally found it for sale on Amazon in a four movie package: two Burts, a Sean Connery and a Charles Bronson.  Six bucks!  I watched it today, and yes, it was something of a clunker, but there we were, albeit briefly, on '73 Fifth, and Third, and Second, and even a dud of a movie set in New York forty years back quickens the heart.
Here are a few screenshots.

Fifth looking south from 11th.  Timboo's!

Walking to the billiard hall at Fifth and 11th (there really was a billiard hall there!) above O'Neil's card and gift shop (now a bank) Burt is lost in thought.

Heading inside.

Later in the movie Burt sets off to investigate the shady Riveredge Exports company. Its warehouse sits on the banks of the Gowanus Canal.  Whole Foods here?  Who'd go for that one in 1973?

Burt hops the fence.  Ah, the Kentile sign ...

Trouble in the warehouse. Exit Burt.

Watched fondly by love interest Dyan Cannon, our hero steals a car from a hapless driver, and heads east up 9th Street, from 2nd Avenue.

I know that this is 9th Street - with the large apartment building in sight up the hill it can't be anywhere else - but the block has certainly changed a lot since the 70's.  Many of the houses on the southern side are gone, replaced by small-scale warehouses, or left as empty lots.

There are a couple of locations in the film that I just can't place.  They look familiar, but don't quite seem to fit the landscape.  I'll put them up here later in the week and maybe someone else can solve the puzzle.

Burtfest!

Late last year, in late night TV junk land (Grit!), I ran into the 70s Burt Reynolds movie, Shamus, I'm no Burt fan, but this one had a local setting, with Burt as a private eye whose base of operations was a pool hall on Fifth.  I didn't get to see the whole thing, and looking for it later, could only find the film available on dubious looking online sites.  Weighing the prospect of more Burt on Fifth against the likelihood of computer viruses, sanity prevailed.  But I wanted to see the whole thing, and finally found it for sale on Amazon in a four movie package: two Burts, a Sean Connery and a Charles Bronson.  Six bucks!  I watched it today, and yes, it was something of a clunker, but there we were, albeit briefly, on '73 Fifth, and Third, and Second, and even a dud of a movie set in New York forty years back quickens the heart.
Here are a few screenshots.

Fifth looking south from 11th.  Timboo's!

Walking to the billiard hall at Fifth and 11th (there really was a billiard hall there!) above O'Neil's card and gift shop (now a bank) Burt is lost in thought.

Heading inside

Later in the movie Burt sets off to investigate the shady Riveredge Exports company. Its warehouse sits on the banks of the Gowanus Canal.  Whole Foods here?  Who'd go for that one in 1973?

Burt hops the fence.  Ah, the Kentile sign ...

Trouble in the warehouse. Exit Burt.

Watched fondly by love interest Dyan Cannon, our hero steals a car from a hapless driver, and heads east up 9th Street, from 2nd Avenue.

I know (at least I think I know) that this is 9th Street - with the large apartment building in sight up the hill it can't be anywhere else - but the block has certainly changed a lot since the 70's.  Many of the houses on the southern side are gone, replaced by small-scale warehouses, or left as empty lots.

There are a couple of locations in the film that I just can't place.  They look familiar, but don't quite seem to fit the landscape.  I'll put them up here later in the week and maybe someone else can solve the puzzle.

On the Big Screen

"An indolent American princeling (Beau Bridges) purchases a dilapidated row house in a black, but changing, Brooklyn neighborhood ... (Park Slope) ... learning something about race and what would be called "gentrification" before retreating back into his money.

This mock bildungsroman, directed by Hal Ashby from Bill Gunn's adaptation of Kristin Hunter's novel, is at once broad and nuanced in its characterizations. (Gunn was also responsible for scripting The Angel Levine's kindred fable of racial tension in a New York tenement.) The Landlord received mixed reviews, in part because of its shifts in tone, from the screwball antics of Bridges's idiotic family to the pathos of Diane Sands's career performance as the tenant with whom the landlord becomes most involved."    
                                                               J. Hoberman - The Slums of Park Slope (Village Voice)






In my part of the (South) Slope, the 70s would bring instead Shamus (1973), starring Burt Reynolds as a Brooklyn private eye, hired to recover a cache of stolen diamonds.  It may not be as critically significant as The Landlord, but it has terrific location shots of my part of town forty years ago.  Look, there's Burt, heading down Fifth past Timboo's. And there's Burt clambering on the banks of the Gowanus, right where Whole Foods stands today.  And according to Mary Ann Pietanza, a Brooklyn native writing in the Red Hook Star, Burt was a stand-up guy with on-location spectators, friendly, & happy to chat and sign autographs.  I wish this film was available on Youtube too, but we'll have to be content here with a trailer and a coupla stills.

Burt's Fifth Ave. apartment, around 16th Street

By the Canal (Getty Images)

Canal-side

Two years after its installation the Gowanus Harvest Dome is looking a little the worse for wear. Here it is in 2013, along with the Harvest Dome mission statement:

"The trajectories and traces of Harvest Dome 2.0 amount to a poetics of shared aspirations for the natural environment within the city.  The challenge is to embrace the larger-than-life spaces of nature permeating our city without sizing them down for easy consumption. Harvest Dome brings people together in spaces and places seemingly inaccessible for their contamination, marginalization and neglect, to confront the sublime of nature and its transcendence in the urban realm, amid ongoing efforts to improve the quality, access and enjoyment of this resurgent public space."

That sounds very serious indeed. I wonder what Burt/Shamus - intrepid Gowanus man of action! - would make of such earnest sentiments.

But enough, enough of Burt.  Looking at the poor old dome today, just what is that boat-shaped structure next to the umbrella frames and soda bottles?  I'd love to know.

Shopping

Cubes Rise & Scrap Mountains Fall - Industry Fades Along the Canal

When did this

become this?

The canal-side yard of Sixth Street Iron & Metal has been cleared out, and the owners have leased the space to CubeSmart storage.  Just yesterday The Real Deal ran a story on the booming self-storage market, with developers buying out storage operators & Cushman & Wakefield announcing that "2 to 3 million square feet of self-storage space are in the pipeline." The Real Deal article also refers to the City's intention of tightening zoning regulations for storage facilities "because of the relatively small number of jobs the properties generate."

Yesterday I spoke to a genial employee of Sixth Street Iron & Metal, who was sitting in the street under a large patio sunshade, supervising workers at a warehouse across the street from the empty Gowanus lot. He said the lot was cleared out around three weeks ago, but that the company was still recycling non-metal materials non-ferrous materials*.

Sixth Street Iron was threatened with a lawsuit by Riverkeeper back in 2009, for alleged violations of the Clean Water Act and the Resource Conservation & Recovery Act.  These involved the discharge of toxic materials into the Canal, & the illegal dumping of fill & debris.  In a Times article of  2013  the company claimed to have filed the necessary plans & permits to rectify any irregularities.

CubeSmart is already an active presence in the city, with over twenty storage facilities, including one close to the canal at 338 Third Avenue.  Soon instead of scrap heaps there'll be another large warehouse on the waterbank - another element of the canal's mixed-use-surreal landscape: high-end grocery store, once hotly-contested parole center (what a storm of anxiety that one provoked!), lumber yard, cement works, high-end rental apartment complex et al.  I understand the drive to clean the water, but I do look back with a certain nostalgia to the time when the canal still served a largely industrial function, was not even remotely chic & when there were no Salted Crack Caramel ices to be consumed nearby.

Too many Gowanus posts to mention here, but here are several vaguely related ones:
The development of Second Avenue: There All the Time 
Burtfest! Burt Reynolds in the Slope & Gowanus in 1970's movie Shamus
A short walk by the canal: Big City of Dreams

*DNAinfo has covered this story in more detail.  According to a recent article"the metal recycler no longer buys steel because of a downturn in the market, but still accepts "non-ferrous materials" such as aluminum, copper, brass and wires."

Opportunity

With both storefronts now empty, they've been re-positioned for 2017.  The rent is not exorbitant in today's market, and I hope someone can find this the place to build a small, honest business, but you have to wonder what's next.

Amazing opportunity for restaurateur, yoga/pilates studio, spa/tanning salon, dog boarding, party planning, recording studio, office space, and open to other suggestions .

Some address confusion here, but the buildings are unmistakable

I love this old block, with the buildings on the south side crammed right up next to the viaduct.  If you wanted to play the game of historical significance, I'd place it over any handsome brownstone row. Here, perched near canal and factory, is a block less vaunted for its architectural merit, less lauded for the lives and labors of its residents.  History here's a rougher, dirtier, less conformist creature, awarded less attention.  Some of the street's wooden frame houses have vanished over the decades, but there are still plenty of them left.  A couple of them hide under stucco or brick-face, and others are by now fragile with age and hard use. Several that remain are clearly mid-nineteenth-century, including yes, oh yes, that house of my dreams a few doors up from (the former) Henry's barber shop. Ninth is a busy, noisy corridor, all too prone to flooding, and maybe the noise and the water and its mixed-use status have kept it from changing, at least on the surface, as quickly as other nearby streets.  It doesn't announce itself yet.  I'm always waiting for the obvious tipping point - the house popped up and out and painted all in black and grays, the small insouciant bistro. They'll be here soon enough.

The block in 1973, with many more frame houses (and a couple of small apartment buildings) on the south side.  Screen shot from the movie Shamus.