Saturday, February 2, 2013

[Updated] Reminders: Bodega Walk today

As we mentioned on Monday, the 'No 7-Eleven' Committee is holding a Bodega Walk today... here's more information via the inbox...


As part of our resistance against the incursion of 7-Elevens into the East Village we are inviting you to come with us on the first walking tour of our neighborhood bodegas. We love these corner stores and need them to stay open and intact.

When a 7-Eleven opens the bodegas nearby always take a hit, often a lethal one. During Sandy bodegas remained open and gave their perishable food away. Whole Foods didn’t. Will 7-Eleven? The existence of each of these unique bodegas supports the reality that our neighborhood is a social place and the city is our home. We will chant, read poems, share info about each store and buy stuff before we move on to the next. The walk will take about an hour ending at Tompkins Square Bagels.

Bodega Walk
Saturday February 2nd @ Noon
11th Street and Avenue A

Shawn Chittle created a Google map with the delis surrounding the incoming 7-Eleven on Avenue A and East 11th Street. You can access that map here.


And at DNAinfo, Serena Solomon wrote an article on the walk. You can read that here.

UPDATED 11:05

Per the No 7-Eleven folks:

We'll be walking to 4 bodegas before winding up at Tompkins Square Bagels for a bite to eat. Here are the addresses:

Meeting at 11th and Avenue A @ Noon

1. 528 East 11th Deli & Grocery

2. Sheen Brothers
346 East 10th Street (Corner B)

3. Tompkins Finest Deli
153 Avenue A (10 St)

4. Poppy's Deli
191 Avenue A (12 St)

5. Tompkins Square Bagels
165 Avenue A (11 St)

Previously on EV Grieve:
[Updated] More from the anti-7-Eleven front on Avenue A and East 11th Street

Avenue A's anti-7-Eleven campaign now includes arsenal of 20,000 stickers

'No 7-Eleven' movement goes global with BBC report

Snow Bills season has started


Spotted on the plywood on Avenue B at East Fifth Street.

Friday, February 1, 2013

I'm just sittin' on a fence


Avenue A along Tompkins Square Park today... via Bobby Williams...

H/T Mick Jagger and Keith Richards

Things you miss sitting in a bar around 5:30 pm


Oops. Did it snow? Photos from 5:30 p.m. via Bobby Williams



Viva Alan Vega



Alan Vega, one half of Suicide, here with "Jukebox Babe" circa 1981.

Bonus photo:

Suicide outside CBGB circa 1979...

[Adrian Boot/urbanimage.tv]

Former dry cleaners becoming a handmade ice cream shop on First Avenue


Hmm. EVG regular William Klayer notes the arrival of a rather cryptic sign at the former dry cleaners at 137 First Ave. between St. Mark's Place and East Ninth Street... as you can see: Handmade ice cream ~ summer 2013. No other info right the moment.

The address had a new broker starting in late December.

Do you think that we already have enough dessert around here...? Not a dessert person here so, just asking...

Following the trash bag on East Sixth Street

Meant to post this earlier... but actual news happened... Spotted this morning on East Sixth Street at Avenue A...




... and on the other side of the cars that are practically touching on the street...


Who wants to diagram what happened here?

Breaking AND developing: No water in the East Village?

After the major water main break on Broadway and East 23rd Street about 10:40 ... we're hearing from various people in the East Village who say that their water has been shut off... (haven't heard anything official from the city about the water...)





An update from the Twittersphere...



And readers from the neighbor our reporting in via the comments...

Breaking (so to speak): Workers installing new window for the 7-Eleven on St. Mark's Place

[Bonnie DeWitt]

Last Saturday, a man described as a a "crazy street person" tossed an object through the window at the 7-Eleven on St. Mark's Place... this morning, as Shawn Chittle notes, workers are putting in a new window... and the windows here have proven to be quite sturdy...

[Updated] RIP Ed Koch

As you may have heard, Ed Koch, who served as mayor of New York City from 1978 to 1989, died early this morning. He was 88.

Here is his obituary at The New York Times.

Facebook is filling up with thoughts about Hizzoner. Via The Lower East Side Preservation Initiative:

His term corresponded to the 1980s artistic renaissance in the East Village and, not coincidentally, the first giant wave of gentrification. His often brash, contentious, energetic and multifaceted personality seemed to many to personify the character of the city itself.

Several people have sent along this interview with The Daily Beast from 2010... in which Koch discusses the Tompkins Square Riots of 1988...


Let's look at an aerial view of the neighborhood from 100 years ago

[Click on image to enlarge]

You may have seen this classic photo by Shorpy from 1913... I thought about it this past week while compiling the posts on St. Brigid's. (Like this post.)

EVG friend Pinhead linked to this photo a few years back for a St. Brigid's post on East Village Transitions.

Anyway, it's a shot looking to the east from the top of the Con Ed building on East 14th Street... Can you spot St. Brigid's? Tompkins Square Park?


Paying for these arrows by the hour, so ...


Recognize anything else...?

I can't stop taking photos of this steam vent on First Avenue

At East 12th Street.













Sorry. I can't help myself... Anyway, this will do. (But I have more photos!)

And you can buy one here "for that gritty NY feel."

The photography of East Village resident Sally Davies


East Village resident Sally Davies moved here in 1983 ... and has never stopped taking photos... the painter and photographer shared a few more recents shots with us...

"I like to shoot things that don't necessarily reveal their time, and there are still lots of those visuals here," she said.




"People often think my images are of the old days, but really they aren't," she said. "Those things are still around if you look."


"That wheelchair was on the roof of a buildilng directly outside my living-room window — a big party house. One morning after a wild party, the wheelchair was sitting there," she said. "And it sat there for about three years. So I got several pics of it, in different seasons. Then one day it was gone. Poof."

We also found a photo of neighborhood legend Eddie Boros in her portfolio... Boros, who erected the Tower of Toys in the Sixth Street and Avenue B Community Garden, died in April 2007...


"[There was] nobody like Eddie. I miss him."

Find more of her photos and info on her website.

Inside St. Brigid's, once again

A few more photos of St. Brigid's, which reopened Sunday, via Bobby William...






Previously.

Winter Friday flashback: Jeff Bridges at Sophie's

On Fridays this winter, and probably spring and summer ... we'll post one of the 16,000-plus EVG, uh, posts from yesteryear, like this one from Feb. 22, 2010...

-----

One day last month, American Songwriter Magazine did a photo shoot at Sophie's with Jeff Bridges for an upcoming feature... a photographer for The New York Times was also there for a feature titled "Nine days on the road with Jeff Bridges."

Bridges was in character as Bad Blake from his Oscar-nominated turn in "Crazy Heart." Here are two of the photos that Peter van Agtmael took for the Sunday Times magazine at Sophie's...


Thursday, January 31, 2013

[Updated] At the LES Unity Rally


Tonight at 5:30, Manhattan Borough President Scott M. Stringer and other community leaders convened on Avenue D and East Sixth Street in a solidarity march against gun violence. Joining the group was Arlene Delgado, the mother of 16-year-old Raphael Ward, who was gunned down in a dispute over his jacket on Jan. 4. There have been a handful of other shootings since last July in the area.




Said Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer. "We are marching today to keep our children safe, to prevent the next senseless death — and to stop another tragic shooting from scarring our streets."


"This has to end — how many more mothers have to go through this?” said Arlene Delgado. "I’m speaking out because I would love to save so many other children. I still have a six-year-old to look after, and we have to be more pro-active in our children’s lives. They say it takes a village to raise a child, and our village has to pull together."

[A memorial for Ward on Rivington and Columbia]

Photos by Bobby Williams.

Updated 2-1

Find more coverage at The Lo-Down ... and DNAinfo ...