Looking at what may be coming to 347 Bowery

Koi is one of the bars/restaurants going before the CB3/SLA tonight. Koi is applying for a full liquor license.

In preparation for this, some higher-profile Koi employees held a meet-and-greet at Sala Restaurant on the Bowery last Thursday to answer any questions about Koi possibly turning the former Salvation Army East Village Residence into another outpost of the upscale sushi eatery. (The other locations are in Bangkok, Los Angeles, Las Vegas and in NYC at Bryant Park).

There wasn't any planned presentation. It was rather informal. And awkward. Not many people were there, at least when I was around. (And no naked sushi models.) And the people who were there didn't strike me as the concerned-neighbor type. (The Lo-Down was there too and has additional coverage.)

A few random things from the evening:

— Everyone from Koi was really nice in that trying-too-hard way. But, still, nice.

— The patrons of the Bryant Park Koi were described as low-key, mellow, more mature (i.e., not a bunch of partygoers prone to peeing and vomiting in the streets — my words not their words).

— Someone from Koi volunteered that the former Salvation Army Residence would actually become a restaurant and not merely flipped to be converted into another condo/hotel/high rise. Hadn't even thought of that.

— Koi co-owner/CEO Nick Haque wasn't present, but he is expected tonight at the CB3 meeting.

There were pamphlets offering a few more details on the proposed restaurant. Two floors for the restaurant/bar...6,000-square-feet...230 total seats...overheard someone say the exterior design would be in keeping with the neighborhood.







To learn more about Koi, I visited their Web site and read the many press clippings available.





That write-up in Wine & Spirits on top is my favorite. In describing the LA Koi: "Its valet zone is standing-room-only with paparazzi hoping to catch a glimpse of Paris Hilton or Lindsay Lohan stepping out of an Escalade, and its bar is three deep with supermodels and those who like to be seen with them."

Hmm... Just think of the lux row lining up here...the Bowery Hotel and Cooper Square Hotel and DBGB and 52 East Fourth St and Keith McNally's coming-soon pizza joint and ....

What Koi needs on the Bowery

Fresh graffiti on the old Koi notice on the Bowery. And the second part is difficult to make out. Soporific?



Previous Koi coverage on EV Grieve.

What Koi can do to win us over tonight

As I reported Tuesday, the sushi titans from Koi will meet and greet the neighborhood tonight and talk about their plans to turn a former men's shelter into a pricy eatery.

I'm just hopeful that Koi officials know what will really win us over: Naked sushi models!

Your invite to meet your new neighbor who wants to turn a men's shelter into a high-end sushi joint

On Monday, fancy sushi eatery Koi goes before the CB3 for a full-liquor license for a proposed restaurant at 347 Bowery, the site of the former Salvation Army's East Village Residence.



On Thursday night, Koi reps will look to liquor up concerned locals at Sala.



And they offer us an idea of what the place may look like...



Previously on EV Grieve:
On the Bowery: "What in the hell is this?"

On the Bowery: "What the hell is this?"

As Eater noted on Monday, fancy sushi chain Koi is looking to nab a liquor license for a new joint .... at the site of the now-closed Salvation Army residence at 347 Bowery. Seems about right.



The Koi news prompted me to revisit a short story written by Jack Henry Abbott titled "On the Bowery." His piece was part of an anthology titled "Low Rent: A Decade of Prose and Photographs from the Portable Lower East Side" published in 1994.

After serving 19 years in prison, Abbott arrived in Manhattan at 3 a.m. on June 6, 1981. He stayed at the Salvation Army here at 347 Bowery. Here are a few snippets of his short story:

Sitting on the corner across the street there was a man wearing filthy jeans and a tee-shirt. He needed a shave. He was sitting on the curb with his feet in the gutter. There was a dirty handkerchief tied around his head. His long brown hair fell wildly about his shoulders.

He had a steel garbage can turned upside down between his legs. All its contents were in piles around him and he was beating the bottom of the garbage can with a pathetic vengenace. He was using his fists and the palms of his hands, alternately. I stared at him for awhile, then my gaze passed along and took in the immediate environment. Debris was everywhere in the street and sidewalks. Third Avenue traffic had not yet started. The streets were deserted.

Then I noticed a body laying stretched out on the sidewalk against a rundown building. And then another and another and another. The bodies of sleeping derelicts were scattered liberally around the sidewalks and on the stoops on buildings. It took my by surprise. My mind was blank. I finally thought: "What the hell is this?"

One morning someone came in half carrying a man in his late twenties. The man being helped was over six feet tall. He helped him sit on the cushion of the naugahyde couch I was sitting on in front of the fan. It was exceptionally hot that summer.

The man was filthy, his clothes were torn. His right pants leg was bursting at the seams. He had been lying in the gutter down the street for three days before someone decided to help him into the Salvation Army. From what they could get out of him, he had been wandering in the street one night and a car had struck him. He had crawled between two parked cars. His right leg was broken. It had been bleeding.

P.S.

You likely know what later happened to Abbott, who previously had received help from Norman Mailer to get "In the Belly of the Beast" published. Abbott's story has been told many times. Here's a piece from -- why not? -- Wikipedia: "On the morning of July 18 (1981), just six weeks after getting out of prison, Jack Abbott went to a small cafe called the Binibon in Manhattan. He clashed with 22-year-old Richard Adan, son-in-law of the restaurant's owner, over Adan's telling him the restroom was for staff only. The short-tempered Abbott stabbed Adan in the chest, killing him."

In an entry on the Bowery and LES, Brian Rose wrote the following:

I lived around the corner on East 4th Sreet at the time, and ate in Binibon the day of the murder. I was unaware that anything had happened. Nowadays one would expect to find the crime scene taped off, people milling about pointing and murmering, and, perhaps, the beginnings of an informal memorial of flowers. In those days, it was just another murder on the Lower East Side, though once the connection to Mailer was made, the story became national news.

For further reading:
Writer murders writer in the East Village (Ephemeral New York)

For more on the Salvation Army residence hall here, please read: No Salvation (Jeremiah's Vanishing NY)

Red Koi Organic Sushi Lounge has closed on 1st Avenue

An EVG reader notes that in fairly quick succession, Red Koi Organic Sushi Lounge at 57 First Ave. closed... was served an eviction notice from the Marshal and put on the market.

We didn't know too much about this restaurant between Third Street and Fourth Street... it opened, as we recall, in late 2014...



As you will no doubt remember, the space was home, too briefly, to the Pudgie's-Nathan's-Arthur Treacher's action-packed combo during the glorious summer of 2012. That fryplex of fatty fun was sadly gone by the end of 2012. But we have our memories. And photos.

[Photo from 2012 by Bobby Williams]

The listing for the space isn't online just yet. It was posted at $7,500 after Pudgie's died.

Your guide to the doomed corners of the Bowery

It's challenging to remember all the change coming to what's left of the Bowery... so, a recap, starting next to the New Museum...

1) Speaking of the New Museum, they bought the former restaurant supply company at 231 Bowery here back in September 2008 for $16.6 million, according to the Times. Museum officials said they'd use the top floors for offices and storage and lease out the groundfloor to retail...



2) The parcel of land across the street from the New Museum has nearly 67,000 square feet of buildable space -- six lots on the Bowery at Prince Street... and it has been on the market...the Bari family has owned the property since the 1940s...



3) Eater reported last week that a new restaurant is taking over part of the Sunshine Hotel annex at 245 Bowery at Stanton Street...



4) At 57 Bond at the Bowery (your "new intersection of cool")... the former WaMu bank branch can be yours for retail... Seems like a 1,000 years ago when a Sunoco was on this corner.



5) 325 Bowery at Second Street will become the latest manly-man eatery/bar from Taavo Somer and William Tigertt...



6) I don't know about the southwest corner of the Bowery and Great Jones... can't image this will be an empty lot for too much longer...



7) As I reported last week, the space is available immediately at 348-352 Bowery, which includes the corner lot...



8) The former Salvation Army East Village Residence at 347 Bowery was primed to become an upscale sushi place, but the Koi people decided against it... still for the taking...



9) And as it has been reported this week, 2 Cooper Square will have apartments for upwards of $20,000 a month.



Plus:

10) The White House at 338-340 Bowery is doomed... The four-story building erected in 1916 now serves as a hostel as well as a permanent home for a handful of low-income residents. It is destined to become a hotel...

11) The former Amato Opera building is now taking offers for use as a restaurant...

12) 250 Bowery is a stalled hotel project that is now a hole in the ground... As BoweryBoogie put it: "A dormant pit of doom defined by overgrowth, rusty steel pylons, and errant trash."



13) How about the northwest corner of Houston and the Bowery where Shepard Fairey is getting tagged now? Jeremiah has more on the history (and future) of this space....

And this is just from Prince to Fourth Street... keep going south and you'll find more disturbing closures and developments... BoweryBoogie has been all over this...

Not even a new dickchicken on one of these corners makes me smile anymore...

EV Grieve Etc.: Mourning edition

Right when people are talking about an uptick in LES violence... Bob Arihood brings word of a double stabbing at the Pyramid Club (Neither More Nor Less) And the mainstream media is covering it too (ABC-7)

The victim of the Dec. 5 Delancey bus-bike tragedy was a 74-year-old resident of 620 E. 13th St. in the Tanya Towers project (The Villager)

Another kitschy/thrift store closing (Jeremiah's Vanishing NY)

Rebecca Marx at the Voice on the Tavern on the Green and Ray's sagas: "Proceeds from the auction will go towards paying off Tavern's $8 million debt; it's too bad that some of it can't go towards paying off Ray's, too." (Fork in the Road)

Looking at Balade, the new Lebanese restaurant on First Avenue (Fork in the Road) And find more food news and opinions courtesy of BaHa (With Leftovers)

About tonight's CB3 community benefit plan meeting (Save the Lower East Side! ... and the Lo-Down)

Koi bags its Bowery plans (Eater)

"Unique living opportunity" on LES — complete with roof deck! (BoweryBoogie)

And Indian Curry Mahal was getting gutted the other day at 78 Second Ave. ...




And, from a reader, at the Newark Airport the other day... Tiger still lives in an ad...

Al Horno Lean Mexican Kitchen now open on 1st Avenue

A new outpost of Al Horno Lean Mexican Kitchen has opened at 57 First Ave. between Third Street and Fourth Street.

The quick-serve restaurant apparently serves a variety of traditional Mexican items though with a healthy twist.

Per their Facebook page: "Al Horno is Spanish for 'On the oven.' Enjoy the full flavored taste of Mexico with none of the fat. Many Vegan options to compliment our delicious menu."

You can check out their menu here. (Kale burrito!) They are also open for breakfast and offer a variety of juices. (And they are also very close to one of our favorite places, Downtown Bakery II, 69 First Ave. between Fourth Street and Fifth Street.)

Al Horno Lean Mexican Kitchen also has locations on Second Avenue near 57th Street, Lexington Avenue at 24th Street and West 47th Street between Ninth Avenue and 10th Avenue.

No. 57 was last home to Red Koi Organic Sushi Lounge, which closed this past summer. And, of course, No. 57 housed the unforgettable Pudgie's-Nathan's-Arthur Treacher's action-packed combo during a few glory months of 2012.

EV Grieve Etc.: Mourning Edition

CB3 says no to Koi (Jeremiah's Vanishing New York)

Mason Dixon and other CB3 highlights (The Lo-Down)

14th and B from 1918 (Ephemeral New York)

More vintage NYC postcards (This Ain't the Summer of Love)

At Superdive: "The main problem is how drunk the people who go there are when they depart. They stand outside and scream at each other as though they are all hard of hearing even though they are way too young for such problem... I can hear this drama, most loudly on Friday and Saturday nights, from way around the block. Seriously. They aren't even on my block and I can hear them around the corner and up 76 steps." (Blah Blog Blah)

When "Gossip Girl" groupies convene (BoweryBoogie)

"The storefront vacancy rate in Manhattan is now at its highest point since the early 1990s — an estimated 6.5 percent — and is expected to exceed 10 percent by the middle of next year." (The New York Times)

Lady GaGa conducts interview in coat made of mini Kermit the Frogs (Esquared)

From The Wall Street Journal:
"During the real-estate boom, New York had between 4,000 and 6,000 sidewalk sheds. During the real-estate bust, New York still has between 4,000 and 6,000 sidewalk sheds. Construction sites have gone dark, but façades keep buckling and cornices keep cracking as if nothing had happened to the economy.

Shed builders may be the only busy hardhats left in town. In some cities, sidewalk sheds go up when work is in progress. In New York, especially if landlords are broke, sheds go up and stay up because work is making no progress. Good times or bad, the sidewalk shed is one of those things that make New York New York.

"They're ugly, dismal and ubiquitous," says Rick Bell, who heads the American Institute of Architects' New York chapter. "They define our pedestrian experience -- like the arcades of Bologna."

A visit with Moxie, a nearly 8-year-old East Village photographer with an eye for nature

Text and photos by Stacie Joy 

I recently walked around the neighborhood with East Village artist and fellow photographer Moxie.

She carefully loads her pink Instax mini instant camera and cheerfully informs me she’s in second grade and is 7-and-a-half years old. She said that she likes to photograph nature. So our walk included a visit to La Plaza Cultural community garden on Ninth Street and Avenue C, where Moxie was inspired by some koi fish, birds and squirrels.

We then walked over to Tompkins Square Park for some candid dog photos and posed (people) portraits.

When we run out of time (and are getting low on film), Moxie shows me the images she’s shot.

We wrapped up by talking about her history with the craft and her photo plans for the future.

“Well, I’ve been doing photography for about 2 years. I really wanted to try photography because I’ve been doing art my whole life. I love painting, making jewelry and crafting, so I thought it would be great to try photography. I like taking pictures of people and animals around the East Village. 

Sometimes I take pictures of flowers too. Taking pictures of people is interesting because people are interesting. I like to capture a moment of me and my friends together. I keep every photo that I take in my albums, even if they’re weird or silly. And I plan to keep taking photos. I want to try changing the colors on the lens, and someday I want to try other kinds of cameras.”