Sunday, September 13, 2020

St. Mark's Place between A and 1st now an open street for dining on weekends

St. Mark's Place between Avenue A and First Avenue has been added to the list of the city streets closed off for dining on the weekends. 

Back on Friday, Mayor de Blasio announced 40 open-street additions for the city's Open Restaurants program. He also extended the program through Oct. 31. 

This block of St. Mark's join these other EV streets already participating in the program (as of July): 

• St Mark's Place between Second Avenue and Third Avenue 
• Avenue B between Second Street and Fourth Street 
• Seventh Street between Avenue A and First Avenue 

These corridors are in dining mode on Friday from 5-11 p.m., and Saturday and Sunday from noon to 11 p.m. 

Thanks to Steven for the photo!

19 comments:

Anonymous said...

OH man. It's a nonstop street party, weekends are tough, but I know it has to be done for businesses right now. Hopefully it helps and doesn't have to go on forever. I feel so bad for the restaurants.

Anonymous said...

great make it permanent

Anonymous said...

Was passing through on Friday by 7:30. I wouldn't call what I saw a street party, it wasn't rowdy at all. But the sidewalks were packed, and every seat in every restaurant was filled, with zero social distancing, and with no one sitting wearing a mask at any time. Felt very uncomfortable there.

Anonymous said...

Let’s hope this make it permanent! Return the streets to the people

From the East Village said...

Stop blocking traffic unnecessarily. Pedestrian and automobiles BOTH need to get around.

Anonymous said...

Pandemic is over apparently. Kidults crowded in the backyards yelling and woohooing all night this weekend and all the gentrified rooftop patios you can't see feature braying donkeys and shrieking females. The kidults are openly drinking walking around the streets. A lot of places seem to be disregarding the 11 pm cutoff. For residents who live in the front of these buildings it is a real hassle. I've noticed many of the restaurants have more space outside than they ever did inside. You can't just pay a fee like at the TSA and have a drink and its ok. But the layers of taxes these places generate is really amazing when you think about it. and cancer! Alcohol is the #1 preventable cause of cancer!

Hey kidults - watch out for the scam where you are asked to unlock a citibike for some sad urban youth -

Anonymous said...

The outdoor dining is great! Far more productive than another unhealthy roadway.

hywel dda said...

Isn't that the M8 bus route???

Anonymous said...

Ug I get we need to keep business alive during this covid time but man what about those of us who live and have lived on these blocks for decades, it's a mess of entitled drunks acting well entitled and drunk they do nothing for residents who don't work in the hospitality business like simply respect that they are for the most part visitors here and to act with a modicum of decorum

the kids (NYU?) are back with a vengeance a block up St Marks btwn 1st and 2nd we had 2 raging loud rooftop parties one of which was actually on 9th st (a weekly!) but broadcasted throughout the block in the courtyard and one balcony blaster that raged from 3pm all of these gatherings went on well into the wee hours plus the cars parking all over blasting til 6AM, NYPD does nothing like zero to stop the white kids (sorry but it's true) from living out there bizarre LES fantasies with the fuck you i don't care about you or your kids or your older folks or anyone really who need to be asleep before 3AM so they can get up at 6AM on Sunday after working late on Saturday.

Above all else this is a residential neighborhood one that many of us who have been here for decades have worked to make it the safe welcoming place it is so that businesses can operate and people from all over even kids from the burbs can feel safe etc... but please shut down the raging house and rooftop parties

keep the street dinning for as long as it's necessary due to covid, keeping it beyond that it would be like not cleaning up after a disaster and this current situation is just that ...

Thank You EV for the space to rant

Neighbor said...

Make this permanent! It's so lovely on St Marks and on B. Imagine how nice it will be when COVID is behind us, but for the love of god PICK UP THE TRASH!!!

Anonymous said...

That block isn’t a thru street so it’s not the most necessary street for cars to use. As for pedestrians, they now have more room to walk then they ever have, the whole middle of the street plus the middle of the sidewalk

Anonymous said...

The noise is insane on the weekends. People are really being obnoxious. I know, on this blog, I will be told to move to Utah for quiet. What I see out my window is the same Bro party that you would see in any college town in the midwest so after 30 years I'm considering it. Even before Covid.

Judging from all twentysomething Karens and bros who are now defiant in not wearing masks; NYC is heading towards another lockdown anyway. For months I blamed The Orange Man for politicizing a piece of fabric with elastic. Now its pretty apparent that we have a parenting crisis in the county! This will be one generation that will only have themselves to blame for the state of the world.

In 1918 were people loosing their shit over bars being closed?


Anonymous said...

Where does the bus go ?

Anonymous said...

Give the streets back to the cars. As bar owners would say, the automobile industry is the economic backbone to the city. The tolls, parking & traffic fines not only pay for the streets but also for MTA and schools. The gas taxes are insane. It's employing the people at gas stations pumping gas and the well paid auto mechanics.

Anonymous said...

I am looking forward to when the outdoor dining booths are back to just being permitted in the normal places and not everywhere like this, it's stressing me out. Blocking the road is annoying too, we gotta keep things moving. Lol @ "Return the streets to the people" wtf does that mean? Streets are there for all of us people. They're part of how we all get around and get deliveries and move items and people.

Giovanni said...

As one recent study found, 50% of people infected with coronavirus had recently visited a bar or restaurant with indoor dining. Outdoor activity is safe, with very little evidence of outdoor transmission. We need to stay outdoors as long as possible, and the colder evenings are going to make it even harder for restaurants to survive.

Two of my favorites, Goodstuff Diner and Sammys Noodles have both shut down, and there is no way that Little Poland can reopen under these circumstances. Look at what happened to Cafe Odessa Does anyone still believe that they are just renovating the place?

Right now the major avenues are all empty with almost no traffic, which means there is no business coming into downtown. Midtown is a ghost town. There are almost 350 vacant stores on Broadway alone. We are literally weeks away from another major economic implosion.

We can put up with outside dining for a few more weeks since that’s as long as most of these places will last anyway. At least the waiters will have one last chance to make some money before they are forced to flee the city.

Anonymous said...

Yep, at least 2 raging bro parties Saturday on 6th St near 1st Ave. No regard to social distancing or respect for anyone else. Streams of people coming in and out of the buildings...masks? LOL. I'm past being sympathetic to anyone who is inconvenienced by the pandemic. Now I'm just angry that we have no vaccine and people are behaving as if it's all over and done. If you don't get it by now, there really is no hope.

Anonymous said...

RE Giovanni: Actually the study did not differentiate between indoor or outdoor dining. It just asked if the subjects dined out in the previous two weeks.
https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/69/wr/mm6936a5.htm?s_cid=mm6936a5_x

Giovanni said...

@12:52 PM. You are correct that they didn’t specify whether people had dined indoors or outdoors, but 8 of the 10 States where the survey was conducted have reopened for indoor dining among other activities. It’s possible these people picked up coronavirus either outdoors dining or somewhere, else but studies overseas have also shown high spread at indoor restaurants and especially in bars and coffee shops, which is why NYC has been slow to reopen them. Anyplace else that has reopened too quickly has seen cases suddenly surge. Unless government imposes restrictions, more people get sick and die. Sweden has a Covid death rate that is 5-10 times higher than other Scandinavian countries, so their model of relying on voluntary restrictions didn’t work out too well either.