Holy Cow. This year, the place to be on New Year’s Eve is Old Towne Petersburg. Sycamore Rouge will be bringing back the popular Red Light Burlesque, featuring the Mad Tea Party, Christabel and the Jons, and the Modern Burlesque Brigade’s show “Ballad of a Beautiful Sex Monster.” And if that’s not enough, Old Towne Catering will be hosting Ball of the Centuries, a costume party featuring the Upper East Side Big Band.

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Dress in period costumes or black tie and help the Old Towne merchants raise funds toward their spring 2008 heritage festival. The Ball will be Sep 22 at the Black Swan. Cocktails at 6pm, dinner/dancing 7pm-12am. Tickets $75/person. Silent auction, costume contest, dance contest. Live music by the Upper East Side Big Band. For more info, check out the flyer.

Re: the city-owned building at Old and Sycamore [update: address is 8 W. Old St.] — the one whose facade has been coughing bricks onto both the sidewalk and the roof of the Retreat next door for weeks (I hear two fell just yesterday as a retailer’s client was loading her car) — Well, part of the roof caved in. The two blocks west of Old and Sycamore are blocked to traffic, with the expected negative impact to merchants and restaurants on the given blocks. But worse, the Retreat has been shut down by the fire marshall:
“Notice. This building is unsafe and its use or occupany has been prohibited by the building official….” This sign is accompanied by: “Pick up paychecks at Maria’s.” Thus, a local business is now under order to shut down until the city stabilizes or demo’s its own property, something the owner of this business has no power to control.

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