BubbleWatch

This is a family site, and we hate to devote so much space to hookers and street-shit (cough, cough), but, dammit, you gotta give the people what they want. And judging from the response to yesterday's claim that there are no prostitutes or johns on 12th and 11th Street in the upper East Village, it's clear that you, dear readers, want hookers! And, so, we oblige:

I live on St Marks just off of Third. I'm not sure if the E. 12th dweller who claims the area is now free of dealers and hookers ever ventures out past 11pm, but they're definitely there. I see dealers hanging out next to the St Marks Hotel at least 1-2x/week (usually weekdays after midnight - it's apparently too crowded, or too cop-patrolled, for them on weekends), and you also occasionally see suspiciously underdressed and scarily thin women hanging out for inordinate amounts of time in the same spot. (And I'm not talking about Lindsay Lohan.) I've noticed shady characters adjacent to Webster Hall before as well, so I don't think this activity is limited to St Marks.

Sounds like someone might be trying too hard to rationalize the $800K they just paid for a walk-up 1BR. ("This *is* a good neighborhood! Our apartment purchase *isn't* going to bankrupt us when the market crashes!")

But this reader says the worst is over, and offers a little tangential nabe history, to boot. "I've lived on 11th between 2nd & 3rd for 15 years. There used to be crack whores on 11th and 2nd (and occasionally 3rd Avenue) at all hours of the day and night. There was a crack house on 13th somewhere between 1st and 3rd avenues that might have been the magnet. In the late 80s and early 90s the serial killer Joel Rifkin trolled the area for victims and snatched and killed at least one of the girls. But I haven't noticed a working girl for years. The block has seen happier moments: Warhol star Jackie Curtis 'married' Eric Emerson on the roof of 211 E. 11th back in 1969, just down the way from the Weisz/Aronofsky home. (The groom failed to attend the ceremony.)"

Still, the whore sightings continue, albeit a few blocks south. Another reader writes, "I know of one low class house of ill repute in the east village. There is a brownstone, that a bunch of neighbors have notified the police about on 9th street. People come and go at all hours of the night. There are always unsavory characters hanging about in front. We spoke to a community affairs office who is pushing it to the quality of life detectives. There is no contact info for the super or owner of the building all we have is a name on the buzzer."

Of course, maybe all of this is really a figment of (many) imaginations. To wit, "The crack addicted hookers left 12th street when they renovated the movie theater. I used to drive a truck and if you got stopped at the light on 2nd ave the hookers would come right up to your window and show you the merchandise. I distinctly remember the fact that most had no front teeth, a plus in their line of work i guess. Your tipsters are right about the late night noise from the club down the street. Here's something that I always wondered about living in NYC. Why do people insist on carrying out late night public conversations at the top of their lungs. Indoor voices, please! Back in the day, (Mid 90's) there was a whore house at 305 12th street (corner of 2nd Ave) that was 2 whole floors of the building and another around the corner directly on Second Ave down from the phone co. building above the restaurant."

Indoor voices? Seriously, let's try to stay focused here. To that end, the decidedly focused final word: "if you haven't seen a hooker on east 11th street its either because your eyes haven't left the sidewalk trying to dodge the fecal matter, or you're hallucinating from the boiling urine. having worked on this block for almost 3 years, id have to say that the hookers are only outnumbered by crackheads and blowjobs."

And with that, folks, story hour is over.
· Getting to the Bottom of the 11th St. Hooker Scene [Curbed]
· Curbed Readers Write: Brunching at 70 Washington [Curbed]