UPDATE: Peter says you can buy prints of his sketches here.

Canal Street in NYC. I hate Canal Street. For some reason it’s a tourist destination—but to me it’s a pit of desperation, curbside scam artists, bad food, over crowded sidewalks, despair, sweaty people, and heavy traffic. I walked across this street millions of times when I lived in Tribeca, going into SoHo for coffee. I thought it would be a great idea to document it, though I found nothing pretty about it, and I think that’s reflected in this sketch. It’s dark, dirty, the colors are muddy, and the people are a blur. It was challenging sketching on this very busy street corner, getting bumped and stared at, so I quickly sketched the structure then filled the rest in with my impression of it, which was chaotic.

42 Lispenard, just south of Canal Street is a great red building on a grimy street. It used to be the home of the Pearl Paint annex, but since the recession (depression) has since closed all their annex shops but still maintain their main store on Canal St. I used to go here often since I was only a few blocks away. Now I get most of my art supplies from Blick, out of convenience and availability.

Moved to this location in 1904, and made famous by being the headquarters in Ghostbusters, this Firehouse in Tribeca was also one of the first responders to the World Trade Center on 9/11.

Next to Hook & Ladder 8 in Tribeca, if you look up, you’ll catch an array of buildings leading up to a water tank. As early as the 1800′s all buildings taller than six stories needed water tanks to keep water pressure up in higher floors. It’s become an aesthetic staple in the NYC landscape. In 2006 Tribeca required all new buildings to have water tanks atop them even if they weren’t being used.

This door actually is in an alley between Walker Street and Canal Street called Cortlandt Alley. The alleys around Tribeca and Chinatown are very Blade Runner, especially if there is a haze in the air and the sun is reflecting off the fire escapes. I liked that the address was 72 and it was 72 degrees out.

This is basically across the street from the Liquor Store Bar. I always found the old wooden doors, and iron window theft protector, incongruous to the concept of the post-industrial vision of downtown. I feel the same way about carriage houses in Brooklyn Heights.

How did the book come about?
Funny story. I was contacted this past January by Margaret McGuire, co-editor and now good friend, of Witch Craft. She’s an editor at Quirk. Anyway, she asked me to contribute a crochet project to the book, and we fell into this instant email rapport, going back and forth about Halloween and craft stories. My birthday is November 2, so I often had Halloween parties, which I planned in a very OCD, attention-to-detail way. After a week or so of these emails, she came to learn that I was knee-deep in the crafty, DIY world with my own crazy crochet business, on Etsy and beyond, and basically a lifetime of crafting experience. She then asked me to be co-editor in addition to being a contributor (four times).

Dracula candy bowl (from "Witch Craft")

Is there a crafty, DIY side of Tribeca  these days?
It’s possible there is one, but I wasn’t part of it. I occasionally had crafty get-togethers for friends and would see people knitting at Whole Foods, but that’s about it.

Wait, what about Moomah?
Unfortunately, I only made it there once while living in Tribeca.

Finger food (from "Witch Craft")

Too bad—you’d really love it. When you come back we’ll have to go there. Did you used to celebrate Halloween in Tribeca?
Yes and no. Originally, I started working in Tribeca as a nanny, at the same apartment where I was fortunate enough to live. The first year I was working there, however, I took the kids on the subway back to their old neighborhood, Park Slope, for Halloween. Oops! Last year, I technically celebrated Halloween in Tribeca—I was holed up in my apartment for days working on crafts for the Halloween segments on the Today show, something I’ve done for two years now. It’s a freelance gig courtesy of Better Homes & Garden. Perhaps you saw the drunken ewoks last year? They “downed” one of my candy-filled gourds, crafted right here in Tribeca! That gig is a lot of fun, but requires sleepless nights of pumpkin-carving, scarecrow-making, and running all over the city trying to find styrofoam balls and googly eyes. Fortunately, I was able to find a lot of supplies at Pearl Paint, Whole Foods, Jin Market, and in Chinatown.

What was your best Halloween costume ever?
My mom made me this amazing Catwoman costume—gone are the days when I was excited to be covered in spandex from head to toe.

Crocheted bones (from "Witch Craft")

Any idea what you’ll dress up as this year?
A witch! One of the projects I did for the book was the ruby slippers [see the cover, above], so I will be donning those, black-and-white-striped tights, and some kind of bewitching tulle black dress I hope I have time to make myself. I may just wear this outfit all October, so watch out….

What’s your least favorite holiday? It has to be a legit one, not National Murphy Bed Day.
I am not a fan of New Year’s Eve/Day—it always feels so anticlimactic, there’s so much pressure to make a big deal out of it. Last year I was sitting on a couch, knitting with my parents, when the clock struck midnight, and I was happy as a clam.

Tangerine jack-o'-lantern ("from Witch Craft")

Totally agree—it’s for amateurs. What do you miss most about Tribeca?
The cobblestone roads, even when I had to bike on them, the sound of the police horses, my windowsill garden, walking down Greenwich towards the parks, all the good cups of coffee within a five-block radius.

You’re so clever about crocheting objects. Is there anything Tribeca-specific you’ve ever crocheted? Anything you’ve ever wanted to?
I started working on some water towers, which are a general New York thing, but no, I haven’t come up with something Tribeca-specific! I am open to ideas, however. Do you have any, Tribeca Citizen readers?

HELLO, TIGER
Tomorrow (Sunday), Museum of Chinese in America and the Children’s Museum of the Arts are cohosting a special Lunar New Year day for families, with “a storytelling Mandarin workshop, a noodle making demonstration, a special lion dance performance and workshop, a cake decorating workshop, and family-friendly gallery talks through MOCA’s core exhibit.” All ages, $10. The schedule is here; you can buy tickets in advance here; workshops are first come, first served. Bonus: During February, every paid admission to MOCA gets a red envelope with a coupon for $10 off membership or 10% off a purchase in the museum’s shop. And MOCA will be raffling off memberships and tiger cookies from Six Persimmons (left).

IN THE NEWS
••• Pearl Paint in on the ropes, as was noted here in December, and Pearl’s frame store is being dismantled. The Canal Street store will sell pre-made frames but it won’t do custom framing. (New York Times)

REAL ESTATE
••• “Marc Brown, the author and illustrator who created the Arthur series of books as well as the animated PBS show by the same name, has dropped the price of the 8,300-square-foot Tribeca townhouse (right) that he shares with his wife, Laurie Krasny Brown. The five-story building at 19 Jay Street, which the couple bought for $6.15 million in 2004 and put up for sale for $15.85 million in 2006, is now listed for $9.995 million.” Maybe they’ll take a check? (Cityfile)
••• Curbed wonders what’s wrong with a Thomas Street loft that got $551 per square foot.