We know Midtown and uptown’s miseries. Here’s an East Village update.
Mariann Marlowe had glam pinup boutique Enz’s 18 years at 125 Second Ave. between Seventh Street and St. Marks Place. It opened on Grove Street in the ’70s and survived the 2015 explosion that destroyed half the block. As she reopened last December, Second Avenue and Seventh’s block burned, robbing the neighborhood of landmark Middle Collegiate Church.
New. Now at 76 E. Seventh St., Enz’s windows are flashing the most sensuous consciousness this side of a Kardashian lavatory. The area’s PTSD is getting momentary relief.
Tick, tick boom
St. Martin’s nice relaxing bedtime read — “Ticking Clock: Behind the Scenes at ‘60 Minutes’” by Ira Rosen — is upon us. Stories include:
Who Gambino and Bonanno crime family bosses say assassinated John F. Kennedy
Steve Bannon’s secret personal thoughts about Donald
Ghislaine on Jeffrey Epstein’s alleged private tapes on Clinton and Trump
Ghislaine’s outrageous offer to the author
Why Jimmy Carter never released the government’s UFO files
The person who blocked the UFO story
How the Soviets built their atomic bomb without help of spies Julius and Ethel Rosenberg
Secret conversations with Marlon Brando
Gangster Meyer Lansky blackmailing FBI director J. Edgar Hoover to not investigate the mob
Wealthy GOP donor Rebekah Mercer’s reason for not supporting Mike Pence
Here we go again …
“Frasier,” which ran for 11 seasons, is back in 2022 with Kelsey Grammer reprising his role. Old TV is not new again. It’s new TV that’s old again. Another retread is “Kate & Allie.” And, with Lee Daniels exec producing, the new “Wonder Years” will focus on a black family in Montgomery, Ala. … A newie starring oldies is Shirley MacLaine and Peter Dinklage. “American Dreamer.” About a low-level Harvard prof who wants luxury and a home of his own. Shirley plays a lonely, wealthy widow who offers up her estate … with strings attached.
Hotels, the new frontier
Nobody’s schlepping out for bread and milk, but if you’re up for a billion-mile trek, Axiom Space of Houston is planning an outer space hotel. The Mandarin Saturn or something. To open 2024. Ex-NASA honchos are readying for reservations, but not exactly on HotelTonight.com. The thing costs $2 billion to launch, and Philippe Starck’s designing the way-away guest rooms, which, I’m told, don’t include an open bar with, maybe, a nice ice-cold glass of hydrogen. I mean, we’re not talking a weekend booking. I’m told it promises good views of Earth. Great. Meantime, I’ll just look out my kitchen window.
Memory lane
Forgot to mention this 1972 memory of just-lost restaurateur Joe Allen.
Serendipity’s Stephen Bruce and friends were in Paris. Joe said, “Stop by my new place.” They came. He was thrilled. They ordered. Rounds and rounds went around. Suddenly, looking at his watch, Joe says, “Appointment. Sorry. Got to go.” He leaped up — out — and left the pals he asked to come with a tab he invited them to at a table he picked out for them with drinks he ordered for them in a restaurant he owned.
Zoom room
Daytime Emmy winner, best-selling cookbook author Ina Garten and Primetime Emmy winner, ab fab actress Melissa McCarthy meet virtually on “Cocktails and Tall Tales.” It’s March 26, Discovery+. Shot in Ina’s Hamptons home plus Sydney, where Melissa’s been these past months. The thing’s big-size chat and large-size drinks. Burbling and gurgling.Melissa: Husband Ben Falcone and she “are having a double date via Zoom with our soon-to-be new best friends Ina and Jeffrey Garten. It’s like a wonderful fever dream.”
This city today? You can walk three miles in any direction and never leave the scene of a crime.
Only in New York, kids, only in New York.