Friday, February 5, 2010

Neighborhood gears up for Day of Ray tomorrow

So many people are coming together to help with saving Ray's Candy Store on Avenue A near Seventh Street... last night, we saw a lot of chalk signs on the sidewalk for tomorrow afternoon's big event...





As Chris Flash said in a comment on the Day of Ray, "This is an example of community organizing at its finest."

Indeed. Lilly O'Donnell and Haley Moss Dillon, who both grew up in the East Village, have helped put this benefit together. I asked Haley about her earliest Ray's memory. "Kindergarden -- on my way from the neighborhood school on 3rd street to the playground in Tompkins, my mother bought me and my friend a giant milkshake."

And what does Ray's mean to her and the neighborhood? "Ray is old school New York. He's open all the time. It's a weird little place that everyone feels connected to, that's what New York used to be about, that's what New York felt like when i was growing up, the anonymity of the neighborhood now is destroying what used to be a thriving community."

Get the Day of Ray lineup at Sidewalk Cafe here.

For further reading:
Ray pays rent, faces fries fight; Benefit on tap (The Villager)

And, if you're new to this, go to Neither More Nore Less and type in Ray's Candy Store in the search up top... Bob Arihood has been been taking photos and reporting on Ray from Day 1...

And, you know, there's a Save Ray's Twitter feed, which will have the latest updates...

www.twitter.com/saverays

And there's the Save Ray's Facebook page...

3 comments:

Melanie said...

I loved seeing all the chalk Ray Days all over the hood.

Bob Arihood said...

Grieve , Its the evil clown from Ray's birthday party thats scribbling , chalking up the neighborhood sidewalks in support of the great "day of Ray"

Anonymous said...

She's full-of-shit. If she really grew up in the EV her mother would've been too threatened to ever take her to Thompkins Square Park Playground. And noone who grew up there ever carried a name like Haley and didnt get her ass kicked for it. I call her a trust-fund bullshit artists and you fell for it EV!