#342: Endangered: East Village Quirk

East Village, NYC

And these, my friends, these are the numbers I love to hate. Crass colors, ham-fisted paint jobs, and a palette so appalling it makes an LSD trip look like an Ansel Adams. And yet. There's that word again: character. I'm starting to think of it more, particularly as I watch the boutique-ification of the Lower East Side start to spread its glass enclaved dynasty into the rough-around-the-edges East Village. I was all right with it till y'all took away Mama's, home of the giant platters heaped high with mashed potatoes and the garage sale portraits of cross-eyed housewives lining the walls. But now? It's war.

If the all-time diviest dive Mars Bar -- known far and wide for its ability to transmit infectious diseases by simply looking at a photograph of it -- can be converted into a sanitized TD Bank, as was recently announced, then it seems most anything can happen to EVil, including the eradication of these little character pieces. In fact, for all I know, these numbers have already been converted into a Trader Joe's. Is it time we chained ourselves to every last purple, yellow, and green residence, crying for preservation? Probably not. But it's nice to retain a photo of the atrocity, just in case.