Bowery and First Street likely not ready to blow up

I bravely walked again on First Street near the Bowery... where all those fire trucks were the other day. It looks as if ConEd is on it.



The problem should be fixed by the fall. Of 2011.

Is the Bowery and First Street next to blow?

I'm not one for cheap scare tactics. But. STAY AWAY FROM THIS BLOCK! RUN! RUN!

Anyway, I didn't think much of this at the time. While walking on First Street toward the Bowery in the flurries howling blizzard that nearly crippled the Eastern Seaboard Wednesday afternoon, I saw six fire trucks roar up to just across the street from the Bowery Avalon Condo Building Thing.




No one looked particularly alarmed. The firefighters stood around a little bit. There was talk of a live wire and the salt on the street causing some sort of problem or something. The firefighters then cordoned off these two vehicles, that were apparently on top of some hot spot under the street. Then they left. Someone standing there watching was like, "That's it?" Someone else said, "That's all they can do for now until ConEd arrives."




Given the recent fires/explosions on Greenwich Avenue and Sixth Avenue, I haven't been back this way.

My counsel: When you go to the Mars Bar later, please approach via Second Avenue. I'll be this guy by the door.



And can I pee in this thing?


[Fire retardant suit via]

What's coming to the former Marion's Continental space on the Bowery

Work continues on the former Marion's Continental space on the Bowery... The Bowery institution closed in August 2008. (Their Web site is still up and running, and includes the history.)




As Fork in the Road first reported, the space is becoming the new home of Hecho en Dumbo. The Mexican eatery will seat 65 and include a 10-seat bar. (According to the Voice, the new owners had to go before the Community Board three times before winning approval...)

Hecho en Dumbo was originally slated to open just after Jan. 1. It is now set to open next month...



And, despite the move from Dumbo (that location closed last fall)... Dumbo will remain in the name. Per the Voice:

When the restaurant opens, their Dumbo customers will still be able to find the same staff and the same Brooklyn beers. And, of course, the same name. "We're not changing our name," Smith says. "We thought about it, calling it Hecho en Bowery or Hecho en Noho. But at the end of the day, I think the thrust has always been that we are Hecho en Dumbo. It comes from the Hecho en Mexico logo, and we always saw that as our little play on it, speaking to how authentic the cuisine is and also speaking to our roots in Brooklyn. I think when we move we'll still see ourselves as a Brooklyn-style restaurant."

According to a press release on the new location:

The new space, designed by Architect Laura Gonzalez Fierro in concert with Architect of Record Ralph M. Beiran, AIA of Urban Design Office, will be built almost solely from non-virgin and repurposed materials and will treat patrons to a sparse, rustic ambiance fusing aspects that are quintessentially "New York," such as exposed sun-baked brick, with architectural elements that showcase Mexico’s long-standing tradition of repurposing materials -- wood, metals, and concrete -- and fashioning them into sophisticated furniture and fixtures.

Meanwhile, perhaps this is a message on the old sign directed to the new tenants?



And check out this cool apartment that was sold upstairs...

Bowery and Houston, 10:48 a.m., Jan. 16

A photo shoot. Should I know who these guys are? A woman with a British accent was taking their photo. She kept saying. "Amazing."

$3 million penthouse sale at 52E4

According to the real estate section in the Post this week, a $3 million penthouse was sold at 52E4, the 15 stories of condo at Fourth Street and the Bowery...

Manhattan
EAST VILLAGE $3,000,000
52 E. Fourth St.

Two-bedroom, two-bath penthouse condo, 1,317 square feet, with 13-foot ceilings, marble baths and washer/dryer; building features doorman, garage, pool and roof deck. Common charges $1,811, taxes $225. Asking price $3,250,000, on market 82 weeks. Brokers: Frances Katzen, Prudential Douglas Elliman and John B. Gomes and Fredrik Eklund, Core

According to StreetEasy, there have been 15 sales here...with three units currently on the market...


Previously.

Never too early to start thinking about the Bowery-side pool parties

While trudging through the slushy, mucky leftovers from the storm of the century/decade/year/weekend on the Bowery, we spied the terrace with spa-pool atop 52E4, seemingly ready for action. No mere snowstorm will knock over these canopies!




The pool parties to come here at the 15 stories of condo will no doubt provide a treasure trove of blog posts some time later in the New Year. For that, we are grateful.

Police presence on the Bowery

BoweryBoogie had a report yesterday about a man who was shot on the Bowery near Bleecker early Saturday morning.

The Post had a little more on the incident in today's paper:

A gunman opened fire early yesterday on the Lower East Side, wounding two men.

The victims, both in their 30s, were shot on the Bowery near Bond Street at about 4:40 a.m., police said. One was hit in the leg, the other in the arm.

Both were treated at Bellevue Hospital -- but refused to cooperate with investigators looking into what sparked the shooting.

On Saturday morning, there was a strong police presence...



...to set up pylons for the street construction on First Street and the Bowery that blocked traffic for much of the day....

The Bowery, 9:55 a.m., Nov. 14

A vote against Mr. $115 ticket

Just a little anti-Bloomy (Mr. $115 Ticket!) graffitti on Cooper Square near Fourth Street.

Now and then: Bowery and First Street

Bowery at East First Street looking south toward Houston

Late 1970s...



Today...



Top photo reprinted with permission from Randall's Lost New York City Collection

At this point, I'm not even trying anymore

FANCY portapoopers were brought in for the overflow crowd at the Spin/ John Varvatos bash the other evening on the Bowery. So much for just peeing in Extra Place.

Posts that I never got around to posting: This issue of The Onion was pure garbage

At Houston and Bowery.

Window pain on the Bowery

The Chase branch on Bowery and First Street lost a window the other day. And someone else left behind a little saliva on the window next to it...

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.

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 ....

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?"

The ugly truth

At Bowery and Delancey.

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)