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News
June 12, 2012, 1:00 pm

Slideshow: CBGB Gets Packed Up and Shipped Off (Yup, Even the Toilets)

By STEPHEN REX BROWN


Photos: Lauren Carol Smith.

The old CBGB is ready for its close-up, and The Local was on hand as a section of the bar, the phone booth, a urinal, pieces of wall and founder Hilly Kristal’s desk hit the road yesterday for Savannah, Georgia, where they will be used in the upcoming CBGB movie.

The assorted items still have hints of the glory days at 315 Bowery. The beat-up old desk has a list taped to it of phone numbers for old staffers at the club that closed in 2006. The toilets are still filthy and showed no signs of scrubbing (a latrine and a urinal from the women’s room are shown in our slideshow). Most surfaces are covered in band stickers, and the cash register still has a cut-out image of Mr. Kristal alongside a photo of Shakira.

Yesterday it had all been packaged with care in storage near the Brooklyn Navy Yard and loaded into a moving van bound for south of the Mason-Dixon Line. Read more…

News
July 12, 2011, 2:10 pm

Where Rats Once Dashed, Toilets Await

By STEPHEN REX BROWN
Toilets at the BMW Guggenheim LabEmily Armstrong Toilets have been installed at the BMW Guggenheim Lab on First Street.

“Rat City” is gone, and now the lot at First Street and First Avenue looks ready to host humans.

An eagle-eyed local passed along photos of new toilets being installed last Thursday at the BMW Guggenheim Lab, which will open on August 3.

“I thought this was a sophomoric art installation, but it’s the real thing,” said Emily Armstrong, who snapped the photos.

In an effort to head off any concerns about unwanted odors, a spokeswoman for the elaborate development at First Avenue and First Street said the toilets would be carefully maintained.

“The bathrooms at the BMW Guggenheim Lab are built with special temporary toilets equipped with water tanks,” said Lauren Van Natten, a spokeswoman for the Guggenheim. “They will be serviced at least once a day.”

Trevor Stahelski, the owner of a building on First Street that is near the high-tech outhouse facing Houston Street, said that the bathrooms were a small price to pay, given what used to be there.

“It’s better than a rat-infested dirt lot. It was just disgusting before,” Mr. Stahelski said. “It’s not the most optimal thing, but I still support it — it won’t be there forever.”

The outhouse at the LabStephen Rex Brown The shed housing the toilets.

Indeed, the BMW Guggenheim Lab will be relatively short-lived; it closes Oct. 16.

During that time, the space will host various events “meant to inspire innovative ideas for urban life,” according to the project’s website. One event on Aug. 6 will encourage visitors to “find and collect sounds around the city, then learn how to remix them into audio tracks.”

Though one prominent local expressed skepticism about the East Village serving as the headquarters of an “urban experiment,” no one has, of yet, lamented the eviction of the hoards of rodents that for years called the space home.