Wednesday, September 28, 2011

Neighbors leave first Urban Etiquette Sign for UCBeast

Three weeks have passed since the Upright Citizens Brigade opened up their new theater/comedy club at Third Street and Avenue A...

And we have our first noise complaint, spotted on the East Third Street side...


In part, "Look around you. There are apartment buildings with people trying to get a few hours sleep. Start being a good neighbor and tell to those people to keep their voices down and stop blocking the sidewalk."

Well, this has quickly turned into a comedy of manners. (Offt!)

26 comments:

Anonymous said...

I am someone that was annoyed by their corny fratty sign and think most of the stuff isn't funny, but I have been pleasantly surprised that the outside crowding seems rare and the crowd doesn't annoy me much.

However, I live down the block and not close enough to know for sure. I do think it's strange that they made the main entrance on the the side street, though.

Anonymous said...

A lot of things a loud enough to wake a person from sleep, but this seems obnoxious. Given where the complainer must live, loud people on the sidewalk are an every night deal. Seems like a hot chicks room grudge to me!

Anonymous said...

I lived in the building on 3rd and A for 3 years. Some of the people in the building are the lovely crazy, bitter, and old. The building has an outdoor space and the amount of bitching about people enjoying the space during the day let alone reasonable evening hours was amusing.

While the area has become busier over the years living on the 2nd floor of this building the only chatter I could ever hear is when people were screaming at the top of their lungs or if emergency vehicles were driving by. Even then, not loud enough to wake anybody up.

KC said...

Gotta say, this is a NYC grown and run "art" outfit (laugh if you want, I consider comedy a performing art) and think they should be given some neighborhood support. This is the kind of thing most people to this site are looking to preserve - as opposed to another frat invested bar, club or chain store. I have actually attended numerous UCB performances @ their Chelsea location (which happens to be right in the midst of a huge housing complex) and they were pretty courteous of their neighbors (would never allow loitering etc) & the crowd wasn't the loud, obnoxious type. Maybe give them a ring and speak to them about what happened - they seem like the type of business that would work to solve the issue.

blue glass said...

"some of the people in the building are the lovely crazy, bitter, and old..."
okay, what does this mean?
is it fine for the young, inconsiderate and stupid to get drunk, puke, scream, behave in an anti-social manner and if you object you are called "lovely crazy, bitter and old."
anti-social behavior has nothing to do with age. and i guess when enough of my "neighbors" act like dumb, loud, assholes for long periods of time i get bitter.
if you want to act like a pig go someplace else. like the barn you grew up in. if you want to enjoy whatever you think we have here, do so with some respect for others, and in a polite way.

Arthur said...

Call the venue before you call the police. That's just trying to be a good neighbor.

If nothing changes, then call the police because the venue, then, is not being neighborly.

Anonymous said...

It seems to me this post, like so many, has devolved into a fight between the "obnoxious, drunken new people" and the "boring, whiney old people." Let's be honest, lots of people are rude and too loud, and lots of people are overly sensitive to any noise, but most people are in between - trying to enjoy the neighborhood, don’t mean any harm, and are happy to change their behavior once they realize it impacts others negatively. My guess is that the UCB will be perfectly willing to do everything it can to accommodate neighbors, but on the other side, there needs to be some understanding that they cannot control the action or volume of every person who walks in or near their theater. It seems wrong to let a few loud people generate ill-will towards what seems like a fun addition to the neighborhood.

Stedman said...

Everywhere in the East Village--hell, everywhere in the city--is noisy to some degree. It's a part of life here. If you can't deal with it, you shouldn't live here.

UCB can't control people once they walk out their doors. It's not their fault people are being noisy on the street.

glamma said...

venues should be policing themselves. i for one would love to see this trash booted the f*ck out of the east village and support these neighbors 100%. they have every right to be verbal and make those calls. keep up the good work. and thanks for posting this grieve.

blue glass said...

yes the city is noisy.
however, if folks toned down their volume and just spoke to each other instead of making sure the entire world (and outer space) heard their boring conversations we'd all be better off.
this neighborhood has turned into a campus for drunk students and jersey shore wannabes that want to party and at the same time to make sure that everyone around them is aware of how hard they are able to party.
not everybody that lives in the city wants the noise and the party. and a lot of us do want the party but not at the expense of everyone else.
i moved here when there was more to do to besides party, before the party became the only important thing to do.
it was a neighborhood not a bad college campus!

Anonymous said...

I'm glad there are people commenting that are being understanding of UCB. This is a group that we should be happy to have in the neighborhood.
Author is right and it's a point that's been made before. If you call the police before calling the venue then you're not being a good neighbor either. Being a good neighbor goes both ways.
As a last point to the first commenter: The sign wasn't fratty (corny is debatable) it was satire. Satire is a form of humor. Unfortunately something that many in this neighborhood are lacking.
Some I'm sure for sure for good reason.

Anonymous said...

i am super excited to have UCB in the neighborhood. and i think that calling the police is a pretty extreme measure. talk to the theater. comedians aren't monsters.

Anonymous said...

I think the references to "drunk" and "puking" are kind of funny, considering the UCBeast bar is only serving soda at this point.

The karma-appropriate punishment is that they successfully chase the theater out, and it is replaced by a frat boy bar.

(Young people! Hopped up on soda pop! At almost midnight! Call the cops!)

Anonymous said...

Every time a UCB post comes around, their hired lackeys bombard the comments section with their pro-UCB comments. Annoyyyyingggggg. I have no grudge against the place or the troupe.. only with its obnoxious support system.

EV Grieve said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
EV Grieve said...

@ anon 2:14

I've been deleting all the comments from Amy Poehler!

dwg said...

I agree with trying to talk with UCB if noisy crowds continue. It is the responsibility of a performance venue or bar to monitor their patrons. Especially with an entrance on a residential side street. And UCB should be proactive in this. They've been around long enough to know. But do try to talk with them and establish a rapport. If the noise persists- Plan B.

Jeremiah Moss said...

venues CAN police their patrons once they walk out the door, if they are congregating outside the door, but they don't. in the EV, they never do.

hire someone whose job it is to do crowd control. enlist existing employees to do crowd control sweeps in shifts. eventually, you create a culture of respect as your regulars get the idea that it's not okay to stand around people's doorways and under their windows and bray like donkeys for hours on end.

easy enough. so why don't they do it? i'll tell you--because these business owners want to be "cool." they don't want to be "haters." and cool means, "hey, man, it's cool, have a good time, hang around outside, i'm not going to harsh your buzz," or whatever the fuck.

well, then someone else will. that's what 311 and buckets of piss are for.

Anonymous said...

ANON 1:42: "As a last point to the first commenter: The sign wasn't fratty (corny is debatable) it was satire. Satire is a form of humor. Unfortunately something that many in this neighborhood are lacking."

NO, you fuck, it is not satire when nobody knows what you are talking about. That's why the cornball jokes should be kept inside, and I thank them for doing so.

Anonymous said...

@Jeremiah

UCB has interns that do crowd control at the 26th St. location, keeping them away from the Gristedes entrance and from blocking the sidewalks, etc. I'm sure interns are keeping an eye on the street in the EV as well.

Anonymous said...

I don't get it. If it's just people outside chatting and socializing? That's what I love about the East Village. Uptown neighborhoods are dull and empty in comparison. Upper West Side evenings feel like a happening night in Philadelphia.

Of course, if there is antisocial behavior, like drunken disorder, violence, vomiting, etc that's another matter. But just social conversation? That's what fuels city life. We should be thankful for it. I wish more people would talk to one another on the streets.

- East Villager

Jill said...

@Jeremiah your words put other words to shame.

Anonymous said...

ANON 3:54:
"In satire, vices, follies, abuses, and shortcomings are held up to ridicule, ideally with the intent of shaming individuals, and society itself, into improvement."
Get it genius? Nothing in there says you need to get it for it to exist. That is assuming someone gets it, somewhere.
Way to be incredibly self involved though. An even bigger point...it was just a sign. On a comedy club. Avert your eyes, turn your head...slightly or better yet get a hobby. anything is better than whining on blogs all day.
Please understand, I don't really care about the UCB. I'm more concerned about how drab and humorless some of my neighbors are these days.

Anonymous said...

12:30 (I'm not 3:54 btw), the Hot Chicks *sketch* may be satire, sure. It satirizes ... I don't know, dumb husbands? uptight ladies? ridiculous real estate amenities? But the sketch does fit the definition of satire, yes.

The Hot Chicks SIGN, however, taken sui generis -- which is how 99.9% of people, not being ur-comedy nerds, will take it, having absolutely no idea to what the sign refers -- satirizes absolutely nothing. It's just a dumb (or I guess I should say CORNY) sign. I also really don't care about the UCB but wonder why this is so hard for the Hot Chicks sign lovers to understand.

Anyway this sign/bane of all our existences now happily resides inside the club, where a sign for a "room" makes more goddamn sense anyway, so why are we all still talking about it! argh, this f*cking sign will be the hill we all die on!!

Josef said...

It's real simple: if you want quiet, move to the 'burbs. If you want to live in the east village, deal with the noise. buy a white noise generator, or some ear plugs, or jut man up and quit whining.

I wish that pansy had put his name to the sign so we would know whose place to show up outside with vuvuzelas and tubas at 3am this weekend.

Unknown said...

Everywhere in the East Village--hell, everywhere in the city--is noisy to some degree. It's a part of life here. If you can't deal with it, you shouldn't live here
Robbie
mynewrc