Extra Place Nov 2008

This little blind alley, Extra Place, has been in the local news lately. The developer who owns the new buildings on the right, wants to buy the street from the city and turn it into some sort of squeeky clean shopping arcade. The opposition comes from people who want to prevent the Lower East Side from being disneyfied with bland concrete and glass structures obliterating the local landscape. The back door of CBGB's used to empty on Extra Place. One of the Ramones reminisced fondly in the paper over stumbling over garbage in Extra Place while in a drugged stupor following a concert at CBGB's. I asked the opinion of a Mr Chen, who can be seen weighing down plastic tarps with bricks over the gratings. He operates a dance studio in the basement and complains that he has to sop up around 15 gallons of water from the basement floor when it rains. As far as he is concerned, the developer can keep the alley so long as he stops the flood of water into his basement I stopped here to see what the fuss was all about after hiking past from Andrew's birthday celebration in Chinatown

Extra Place Nove 2008