Friday, August 31, 2012
Thank you
Some silly Britpop from the Pale Fountains circa 1982.
And I think to myself
There's no place I'd rather be
First residents moving into 315 E. 10th St.
Jose Garcia noticed that the first tenants are moving into the freshly gut renovated 315 E. 10th St. today... the first listings for the former Education Alliance building hit the market two weeks ago, as we first noted.
As
And since then, the building has quickly been turned into residences... a three-bedroom unit is asking $4,895 ... there's also a four-bedroom apartment for $6,500, per Streeteasy.
Previously on EV Grieve:
A bid to protect the integrity of 315 E. 10th St.
Landmarks Preservation Commission expedites hearing on East 10th Street Historic District
Workers quickly start dismantling roof of historic 315 E. 10th St.
Today in photos of someone sitting in a bathtub on Astor Place
Charles Eshelman has his tub on Astor Place today. Jerry doesn't look so amused.
Photo by Dave on 7th.
EV Grieve Etc.: Mourning edition
The D.L. Cerney boutique is closing on East Seventh Street after 28 years (Jeremiah's Vanishing New York)
XXX news: New York court overturns zoning law on adult clubs, video stores (Reuters via Curbed)
East Village-based feminist writer Shulamith Firestone dies at 67 (The New York Times)
Nursing Star back to health (DNAinfo)
Guerrilla garden on Stanton Street (East Villager)
The 1966 “Sip In” at Julius’ (Off the Grid)
The latest on the incoming Cocktail Bodega (BoweryBoogie)
CB3 to hear about conversion of the Jarmulowsky Bank building to hotel (The Lo-Down)
... Crap, it wasn't a dream here on First Avenue and East 13th Street...
So long summer...
Summer isn't officially over... just ceremoniously with the arrival of Labor Day Weekend. (Don't worry — according to The Wall Street Journal, you can still wear white jeans past Labor Day.)
So The Summer of Bees™ prediction didn't really pan out.
Anyway, so long Moira ... Katie ... crusties ... storm clouds ... fake human kidney ... (these were all among the most popular EVG posts based on traffic or pageviews or whatever)...
And I've had better summers. You?
Bettie and the Ramones head back to the Bowery
Starting on Sept. 19, the New Museum is paying tribute to the "original artwork, ephemera and performance documentation" by artists who lived and worked on or near the Bowery.
The exhibit is titled "Come Closer: Art Around the Bowery, 1969–1989." Per the release:
The collection has been assembled from the New Museum's own collection as well as 98 Bowery, the online portal that Marc H. Miller curates. (You can read our Q-and-A with Miller here.)
Miller told us that the Museum will be exhibiting Bettie & the Ramones, which marks the first time that Curt Hoppe's painting has been shown publicly since 1978. (The piece was part of the the Punk Art Exhibition in Washington D.C. in 1978. Read more about that here.)
[Photo by Marc H. Miller & Bettie Ringma]
Miller now owns the painting, and on Wednesday, workers packed it up for the trip from his Brooklyn home to the Bowery....
[Photos courtesy of 98 Bowery via Facebook]
In an interview with us in February 2010, Hoppe shared his favorite Ramones story:
[Via Curt Hoppe's website, where you can find more of the Ramones]
The Bowery exhibition will include works by Barbara Ess, Coleen Fitzgibbon, Keith Haring, John Holmstrom, Hoppe, Colette Lumiere, Miller, Adrian Piper, Adam Purple, Dee Dee Ramone, Joey Ramone, Marcia Resnick, Bettie Ringma, Christy Rupp, Arleen Schloss, Charles Simonds, Eve Sonneman, Billy Sullivan, Paul Tschinkel, Arturo Vega and Martin Wong.
Read the release about "Come Closer" here.
For further reading on EV Grieve:
Life at 98 Bowery: 1969-1989
Revisiting Punk Art
Q-and-A with Curt Hoppe: Living on the Bowery, finding inspiration and shooting Mr. Softee
The exhibit is titled "Come Closer: Art Around the Bowery, 1969–1989." Per the release:
During these two decades, the Bowery was commonly identified with the furthest extremes of metropolitan decline — municipal neglect, homelessness, and substance abuse. As landlords and civil services abandoned the neighborhood, the subsequent cheap rents and permissive atmosphere drew artists downtown.
The Bowery’s lofts provided a social network where painters, photographers, performance artists, musicians, and filmmakers exchanged ideas and drew inspiration from this concentration of creative activity.
The collection has been assembled from the New Museum's own collection as well as 98 Bowery, the online portal that Marc H. Miller curates. (You can read our Q-and-A with Miller here.)
Miller told us that the Museum will be exhibiting Bettie & the Ramones, which marks the first time that Curt Hoppe's painting has been shown publicly since 1978. (The piece was part of the the Punk Art Exhibition in Washington D.C. in 1978. Read more about that here.)
[Photo by Marc H. Miller & Bettie Ringma]Miller now owns the painting, and on Wednesday, workers packed it up for the trip from his Brooklyn home to the Bowery....
In an interview with us in February 2010, Hoppe shared his favorite Ramones story:
My best memory about the Ramones has got to be when they signed the painting Bettie and the Ramones back in 1978. You can’t imagine the thrill of carrying that big 4’ x 6’ painting down the Bowery and getting the Ramones to specially come over to CBs in the afternoon just to sign it. Tommy was still in the group. They all just stood there staring at it. I think Joey was the only one who really got it.
Dee Dee was all hyper and kept asking their manager Danny Fields if it was OK to sign it. Then Johnny asked, "Who's Bettie?" I replied, "She's every Fan." When we carried that autographed painting back to 98, Marc, Bettie and I were just flying. I love the Ramones.
The Bowery exhibition will include works by Barbara Ess, Coleen Fitzgibbon, Keith Haring, John Holmstrom, Hoppe, Colette Lumiere, Miller, Adrian Piper, Adam Purple, Dee Dee Ramone, Joey Ramone, Marcia Resnick, Bettie Ringma, Christy Rupp, Arleen Schloss, Charles Simonds, Eve Sonneman, Billy Sullivan, Paul Tschinkel, Arturo Vega and Martin Wong.
Read the release about "Come Closer" here.
For further reading on EV Grieve:
Life at 98 Bowery: 1969-1989
Revisiting Punk Art
Q-and-A with Curt Hoppe: Living on the Bowery, finding inspiration and shooting Mr. Softee
The Incredible Hulk (Hogan jacket)
Spotted in the window at Metropolis on Third Avenue near East 10th Street. It's $150. Perhaps a small price to pay to wear Mr. Nanny on your back?
Summer Fridays rehash: Mars Bar regulars get in the way of a Drew Barrymore photo shoot
Hey, we're STILL digging into the EVG archives during summer Fridays... We first posted this on Oct. 19, 2009...
--------------
Over the weekend, we had a very important post about some guy from "Gossip Girl" going to the Mars Bar for one of those "A Night Out With" features in the Times.
And the conversation turned to Drew Barrymore's recent photo shoot at Mars Bar for the new issue of Nylon. So here are the shots from that Mars Bar photo shoot in the magazine. (Dunno why the guy in the newsstand got so annoyed when I did this!)
Um, you can't even tell it's the Mars Bar. As EV Grieve reader ak commented, "still trying to decide if i believe that the background was photoshopped out of the others." And Goggla said: "I was there for the Barrymore shoot and the weird thing is they used white backdrops for the photos. If they wanted to block out all the graffiti, why go in there in the first place? (they also made sure to block out all the regulars)" And Jeremiah found some outtakes from the shoot here:
Since Goggla was there, I asked her more about the shoot...:
--------------
Over the weekend, we had a very important post about some guy from "Gossip Girl" going to the Mars Bar for one of those "A Night Out With" features in the Times.
And the conversation turned to Drew Barrymore's recent photo shoot at Mars Bar for the new issue of Nylon. So here are the shots from that Mars Bar photo shoot in the magazine. (Dunno why the guy in the newsstand got so annoyed when I did this!)
Um, you can't even tell it's the Mars Bar. As EV Grieve reader ak commented, "still trying to decide if i believe that the background was photoshopped out of the others." And Goggla said: "I was there for the Barrymore shoot and the weird thing is they used white backdrops for the photos. If they wanted to block out all the graffiti, why go in there in the first place? (they also made sure to block out all the regulars)" And Jeremiah found some outtakes from the shoot here:
Since Goggla was there, I asked her more about the shoot...:
There were about 14 regulars in there and they just had the ones sitting at the end of the bar move out of the way. They shot back by the bathrooms and up front by the windows, but put backdrops up in both places. They didn't even hang around to drink, so I really don't know why they bothered.
Summer Fridays rehash: The Angelika turns 20
Hey, we're STILL digging into the EVG archives during summer Fridays... We first posted this on Sept. 29, 2009...
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On this date in 1989, the Angelika Film Center on Houston and Mercer opened. The theater was originally set to open earlier, on Aug. 18, but there were delays. As the Times reported on Aug. 18, 1989:
As commenter King Biscuit noted at Cinema Treasures, only four of the six screens were ready on Sept. 29 (the other two opened on Oct. 4 and Oct. 13). The premiere engagements were "Shell Shock," "Emma's Shadow," "The Navigator" and "Shirley Valentine."
I haven't been to the Angelika in years. It's perfectly pleasant on a weekday afternoon, when not many people are around. Otherwise, my gripes about it are the same as everyone else's gripes: You know, those uncomfortable seats. (Did they ever replace them?) Terrible sightlines. Etc.
Some good memories, I think, through the years. I remember taking an afternoon off, and sitting in an empty auditorium watching Hal Hartley's "The Unbelievable Truth." I also recall being coerced into to seeing "The Crying Game" at the height of its hype, and standing in some crazy line for tickets. And some wisenheimer walks by and divulges an important penis-related plot point to those of us in line.
And maybe I never got over that now-commonplace concept of cafe and theater, which I always thought took the emphasis away from the film. (Nothing so bad as the decision-makers who decided it was a good idea to sell and serve nachos in a theater...)
Back to some history. As that Times article mentioned, the building was once home to McKim, Mead and White's grand Cable Building. Forgotten NY notes, this once "powered Manhattan's cable cars in the late 1890s and early 1900s. Yes, Manhattan once had an extensive system of cable cars rivaling San Francisco's. The building housed the enormous machinery that was necessary to run the cars in Manhattan as far north as 36th Street. The cable rails were converted to electricity in the early 1900s, and largely eliminated by buses by the 1940s."
Here's a shot of the cable building circa 1894:
According to Architecture NY, "the building to the left of Vogel's window (above) was demolished in the 1950s when Houston Street was widened from it's original 2 lanes to 4 lanes. Three other buildings still further left in the first view were also demolished -- around 1915 to make way for a taller office building of 12 stories. The one that was featured with some kind of 'art' bolted to the side wall that created a big stir when the owners wanted to remove it for a billboard. I believe there is Club Monaco on the ground floor still of that 12 story building."
NYC Architecture has everything else that you'd ever want to know about the Cable Building. (There's plenty more information here.)
Before this, the site was home to St. Thomas Church, which burned down in 1851. The church was rebuilt and then demolished circa 1890. Sounds familiar.
Top photo via.
Other photos via.
------------
On this date in 1989, the Angelika Film Center on Houston and Mercer opened. The theater was originally set to open earlier, on Aug. 18, but there were delays. As the Times reported on Aug. 18, 1989:
The Angelika Film Center, a new six-screen movie theater in SoHo that was to have opened today, has postponed its opening for at least a week. The opening of the $4 million center at Mercer and Houston Streets, which is to be Manhattan's only first-run, multi-screen movie theater south of Greenwich Village, has already been postponed several times because of construction delays.
"I have so much egg on my face, if I say Aug. 25, I don't want to have to eat it again," said Joseph Saleh, the president of Angelika Films, the New York-based production and distribution company that has developed the theater.
The postponement, he added, was because city inspectors had "raised objections about the plumbing and sewage-injection systems, which the contractor couldn't resolve in time."
The theater will present a mixture of "major and independent first-run feature films, retrospectives, foreign films and children's programming," including movies released by Angelika Films, Mr. Saleh said. It will open with "Let It Ride," a comedy starring Richard Dreyfuss and Teri Garr; a Disney action-adventure film called "Cheetah," and the American premieres of two Angelika releases - "Emma's Shadow," a Danish movie about a girl who orchestrates her own kidnapping to get her parents' attention, and "Shell Shock," an Israeli film about two soldiers after the 1973 Middle East war.
The center will include two theaters with 265 seats each, and one each with 210, 190, 130 and 85 seats, as well as a 7,000-square-foot lobby with an espresso bar and cafe catered by Dean & DeLuca. It occupies the basement and ground floor of the Cable Building, which was designed in 1894 by McKim, Mead & White to store Houston Street cable cars.
Tickets will cost $7, and can be reserved in advance by credit card.
As commenter King Biscuit noted at Cinema Treasures, only four of the six screens were ready on Sept. 29 (the other two opened on Oct. 4 and Oct. 13). The premiere engagements were "Shell Shock," "Emma's Shadow," "The Navigator" and "Shirley Valentine."
I haven't been to the Angelika in years. It's perfectly pleasant on a weekday afternoon, when not many people are around. Otherwise, my gripes about it are the same as everyone else's gripes: You know, those uncomfortable seats. (Did they ever replace them?) Terrible sightlines. Etc.
Some good memories, I think, through the years. I remember taking an afternoon off, and sitting in an empty auditorium watching Hal Hartley's "The Unbelievable Truth." I also recall being coerced into to seeing "The Crying Game" at the height of its hype, and standing in some crazy line for tickets. And some wisenheimer walks by and divulges an important penis-related plot point to those of us in line.
And maybe I never got over that now-commonplace concept of cafe and theater, which I always thought took the emphasis away from the film. (Nothing so bad as the decision-makers who decided it was a good idea to sell and serve nachos in a theater...)
Back to some history. As that Times article mentioned, the building was once home to McKim, Mead and White's grand Cable Building. Forgotten NY notes, this once "powered Manhattan's cable cars in the late 1890s and early 1900s. Yes, Manhattan once had an extensive system of cable cars rivaling San Francisco's. The building housed the enormous machinery that was necessary to run the cars in Manhattan as far north as 36th Street. The cable rails were converted to electricity in the early 1900s, and largely eliminated by buses by the 1940s."
Here's a shot of the cable building circa 1894:
According to Architecture NY, "the building to the left of Vogel's window (above) was demolished in the 1950s when Houston Street was widened from it's original 2 lanes to 4 lanes. Three other buildings still further left in the first view were also demolished -- around 1915 to make way for a taller office building of 12 stories. The one that was featured with some kind of 'art' bolted to the side wall that created a big stir when the owners wanted to remove it for a billboard. I believe there is Club Monaco on the ground floor still of that 12 story building."
NYC Architecture has everything else that you'd ever want to know about the Cable Building. (There's plenty more information here.)
Before this, the site was home to St. Thomas Church, which burned down in 1851. The church was rebuilt and then demolished circa 1890. Sounds familiar.
Top photo via.
Other photos via.
Thursday, August 30, 2012
On the 'Blue Bloods' set: Waiting for Tom, hangin' with Donnie
As you may have noticed, crews are around to film scenes for the CBS series "Blue Bloods," which stars Tom Selleck and Donnie Wahlberg...
[EVG via Twitter]
EVG reader Jake sent along these photos from East 10th Street between Avenue A and First Avenue... No Selleck, but Donnie W. made an appearance...
Somewhere in the middle there.
EVG reader Jake sent along these photos from East 10th Street between Avenue A and First Avenue... No Selleck, but Donnie W. made an appearance...
Somewhere in the middle there.
EV Grieve Etc.: Mourning edition
Star, the dog shot by the NYPD, loses an eye (DNAinfo)
Current owners of CBGB hand deliver a "Free Pussy Riot" letter to Moscow (Gothamist)
The pressure of playing Debbie Harry in a movie (Entertainment Tonight)
Tracking the Republicans in the Village (Off the Grid)
More criticism for Sheldon Silver (The Lo-Down)
People can get a little ouchy when you criticize the High Line (Jeremiah's Vanishing New York)
Delivering pigs on Grand Street (BoweryBoogie)
... and the NYPD is looking for this guy who robbed one of the Chase branches on Second Avenue yesterday (New York Post)
Wet hot American summer with Jugger-nut
We weren't able to see Jugger-nut perform at the Pyramid on Avenue A last Wednesday. .. but we kind of feel like we were there via these photos that photographer Walter Wlodarczyk shared with us ...
And Jugger-nut plays the Grand Victory in Williamsburg tonight with a bunch of other cool bands as part of Imaginary Friends' residency. Details here.
And Jugger-nut plays the Grand Victory in Williamsburg tonight with a bunch of other cool bands as part of Imaginary Friends' residency. Details here.
Trucks, trucks everywhere — so please be careful
As you've probably noticed, the entire neighborhood is one big construction zone there's a lot of construction going on around the neighborhood ... (here's a look at 17 of the current projects).
All this constructions means, of course, construction trucks and equipment. A lot of it. A lot of these trucks are flying around. Everyone's in a hurry. Often, there are flag wavers keeping an eye out for pedestrians.
[Bobby Williams]
But often there aren't.
So be careful. (Don't worry — this isn't an anti-texting-while-wearing-Bose-headphones or talking-on-a-smartphone-while-walking screed.)
I watched this truck maneuvering to drop off a fresh dumpster at the former Cabrini site on Avenue B at East Fifth Street the other morning. The driver didn't have any lookouts as he was throwing it into reverse and moving quickly on Avenue B... I slowed down when he made a sudden stop and put it into reserve to back up East Fifth Street...
Then he stopped on East Fifth Street, as if he changed his mind, and zipped out going the wrong way — without stopping — and racing to the south...
A woman toting two small kids and pushing a stroller had crossed the Avenue a few moments before... and there was the oblivious guy on his phone talking about last night a little ways away.
As you may have read, Soho fixture Jessica Blue was crushed to death Monday morning after she was caught by the rear wheels of a flatbed semi turning right from Houston onto Sixth Avenue. The NYPD cited the driver for failure to yield and failure to exercise due care, according to Streetsblog.
Streetsblog noted that the truck cab was missing "the required front-mounted crossover mirrors, which give truck drivers a view of what’s directly in front of them."
All this constructions means, of course, construction trucks and equipment. A lot of it. A lot of these trucks are flying around. Everyone's in a hurry. Often, there are flag wavers keeping an eye out for pedestrians.
But often there aren't.
So be careful. (Don't worry — this isn't an anti-texting-while-wearing-Bose-headphones or talking-on-a-smartphone-while-walking screed.)
I watched this truck maneuvering to drop off a fresh dumpster at the former Cabrini site on Avenue B at East Fifth Street the other morning. The driver didn't have any lookouts as he was throwing it into reverse and moving quickly on Avenue B... I slowed down when he made a sudden stop and put it into reserve to back up East Fifth Street...
Then he stopped on East Fifth Street, as if he changed his mind, and zipped out going the wrong way — without stopping — and racing to the south...
A woman toting two small kids and pushing a stroller had crossed the Avenue a few moments before... and there was the oblivious guy on his phone talking about last night a little ways away.
As you may have read, Soho fixture Jessica Blue was crushed to death Monday morning after she was caught by the rear wheels of a flatbed semi turning right from Houston onto Sixth Avenue. The NYPD cited the driver for failure to yield and failure to exercise due care, according to Streetsblog.
Streetsblog noted that the truck cab was missing "the required front-mounted crossover mirrors, which give truck drivers a view of what’s directly in front of them."
When Joe's Bar starred on 'Kojak' 35 years ago
The other day we mentioned that Josie's opened in the Joe's Bar space on East Sixth Street between Avenue A and Avenue B... turns out Joe's was the centerpiece of an episode of "Kojak" from 1977.
The neighborhood made many appearances in the series with Telly Savalas that aired from 1973-1978 ... Most notably, the facade of the 9th Precinct on East Fifth Street served as the setting for Lt. Theo Kojak's office.
The episode featuring Joe's and East Sixth Street aired on Jan. 25, 1977 during the fourth season. A description: "A Puerto Rican cop goes undercover in his old neighborhood to find out who is trying to start a barrio gang war."
The episode also featured Miguel Piñero, the playwright-actor and co-founder of the Nuyorican Poets Café.
And a few screengrabs...
Joe's was turned into Tres Arboles Bar & Grill...
And here is a clip of the scene...
Just the first three seasons are available at Hulu.
(Read more about East Sixth Street in our Out and About in the East Village feature yesterday.)
The neighborhood made many appearances in the series with Telly Savalas that aired from 1973-1978 ... Most notably, the facade of the 9th Precinct on East Fifth Street served as the setting for Lt. Theo Kojak's office.
The episode featuring Joe's and East Sixth Street aired on Jan. 25, 1977 during the fourth season. A description: "A Puerto Rican cop goes undercover in his old neighborhood to find out who is trying to start a barrio gang war."
The episode also featured Miguel Piñero, the playwright-actor and co-founder of the Nuyorican Poets Café.
And a few screengrabs...
Joe's was turned into Tres Arboles Bar & Grill...
And here is a clip of the scene...
Just the first three seasons are available at Hulu.
(Read more about East Sixth Street in our Out and About in the East Village feature yesterday.)