Saturday's opening shot

Who's your favorite moose? Sixth and A...

Thursday to Friday on 5th and A

Workers spent a good part of the day yesterday powerwashing the graffiti off of the Con Ed substation on Avenue A between Fifth Street and Sixth Street...

And by this morning... (pic by Stacie Joy) ...

Before yesterday's big scrub...

Putting the heat on plans for 2 power plants in Stuyvesant Town-Peter Cooper Village

The Stuyvesant Town-Peter Cooper Village Tenants Association is hosting a rally tomorrow (Thursday, Dec. 16) at 11 a.m. to speak out against their property's natural gas power plants. 

According to a TA rep, the majority owner, the giant real-estate investor Blackstone Group, has built one (not yet operational) and is planning another on the 80-acre parcel.

"We've been fighting this for more than a year," the rep said via email. 

And it sounds as if they have some help. Local elected officials, including City Councilmember Keith Powers, Assemblymember Harvey Epstein, State Sen. Brad Hoylman and Rep. Carolyn Maloney are expected to attend. 

Details and background here via the Tenants Association: 

Blackstone decided to build the plants on the property to lower their electric bill with Con Ed because gas and electricity are included in our rents. The electricity would be exported to the Con Ed grid, and our buildings would get the steam as a byproduct for heat. 

A major issue is that we think this violates the zoning applying to the property. But the pollution is of concern beyond our community. The plants are CHP (combined heat and power), also known as cogen, short for cogeneration, burn natural gas (a fossil fuel), and are regarded as less polluting than other types of plants. But Con Ed will not be reducing its output, so any emissions from the plants in ST will be additive. The plant that has been built but isn't yet operational is on Avenue C between 15th and 16th Streets. 

Our neighbors to the south are already living in the shadow of the massive Con Ed plant on 14th Street. Our air is already some of the most polluted in the city with the resulting bad health outcomes.

StuyTown-Peter Cooper management previously said that "the project will significantly reduce source greenhouse gas emissions" and that the property "remains a model for best-in-class sustainability practices." 

The rally takes place on Avenue C at 16th Street. You can find more background via the TA's website here.

The TA's last rally was in June. You can read coverage of that at amNY ... and The Village Sun.

Stromboli is back open

Stromboli Pizza, sidelined since early August with a building-related gas issue, reopened yesterday on First Avenue at St. Mark's Place. (Thanks to everyone who shared this news via email!) 

As previously noted, we were told that there was a gas-line issue with the building at 83 St. Mark's Place/135 First Ave. The gas issue impacts the building's residents as well, sources said. 

Steven shared these photos, including of Joseph, Stromboli's owner...

Dan & John's next door has also been closed these past two-plus months. The wing shop has not yet reopened.

Con Ed puts more energy into power washing its substation on Avenue A

Con Ed deployed another early morning power-washing crew to buff the graffiti-filled substation along Avenue A between Fifth Street and Sixth Street. 

This was the second time in less than two weeks in which Con Ed decided to scrub the building, maybe about 80 percent effective as the tags are still visible. (And they missed the POTATO that was sprayed on here over the weekend.) 

After the last washing, the graffiti returned within 24 hours...

This isn't quite reminiscent of the brown paint wars that dominated local headlines from 2012-2014 at the Verizon building on 13th Street and Second Avenue. Tags would fill up the wall. Someone would cover them with brown paint. The tags would return. So did the brown paint. And so on. Eventually, Verizon just gave up.

Thursday's parting shot

An EVG reader shared this photo from early this morning ... 4:50 a.m. to be exact when Con Ed had two workers spend two hours or so power washing the graffiti-filled substation along Avenue A between Fifth Street and Sixth Street... 

Updated 10/1 

About 12 tags arrived less than 24 hours later... a sampling...

Saturday's opening shot

With a steam pipe returning this past week to 10th Street just east of Avenue A...

Gas leak sidelines Hub Thai on Avenue A [Updated: Back open!]

Updated 5 p.m. Good news! Multiple readers report that Hub Thai is back in action!

Bad news for Hub Thai. The restaurant at 50 Avenue A between Third Street and Fourth Street has been closed since last Wednesday. (Thanks to the reader who shared this tip!) 

There's a Con Ed notice on the storefront about a gas leak in the retail space. As such, the gas supply has been shut off for now.

As we've seen (here and here, for example), Con Ed-related gas issues can drag on. Hopefully, there can be a quick resolution here. 

Hub Thai just moved to the space from 105 Avenue A between Sixth Street and Seventh Street in early March.

Speaking out against another power plant for Stuy Town-Peter Cooper Village

The Stuyvesant Town-Peter Cooper Village Tenants Association is holding a rally tomorrow (Sunday, June 6) at 10 a.m. to speak out against plans for another "polluting power plant" on the property. 

Per the invite: "We’re not the only ones affected: so will be anyone within at least half a mile of the plants. According to the city, we have some of the worst air, and environmental justice is a concern." 

The rally is on Avenue C between 15th Street and 16th Street. Several local elected officials are expected to attend. 

Details and background here via the Tenants Association:

In 2018, Beam Living announced they would be constructing a power plant fueled by natural gas purchased from Con Ed on the Main level between 245 and 271 Avenue C. The plant would produce steam for 24 buildings, and the electricity would go back to Con Ed to offset management’s costs. Renderings of the plant shown to the Tenants Association and to tenants depicted a smaller, less intrusive structure than the final version. The plant was almost complete in 2020 when Beam Living announced a second plant, this one to be constructed under the floor of Garage #1 on 20th Street. Any electricity produced would be sold back to Con Ed.

On 1st Street, Con Ed work shutters Cafe Himalaya and Prim Thai once again

Cafe Himalaya and Prim Thai have been dark here in recents weeks at 78 E. First St. between Avenue A and First Avenue.

In late October, Con Ed's emergency repairs at the address forced the two small restaurants to shutter for a week... their reopening on Nov. 4 was apparently short-lived as they both had to shut down again, per several EVG readers.

There haven't been any updates on either the Cafe Himalaya and Prim Thai Instagram accounts... and no one from Cafe Himalaya, the 18-year-old family-owned Tibetan/Nepalese restaurant, responded to queries about their status. It has been a particularly tough year for them: In early October, someone broke in and stole their cash drawer.

Photo from Sunday evening

Previously on EV Grieve:

Checking in on Cafe Himalaya

Report of a maintenance hole explosion on 1st Avenue

Here's an early reader report... this happened on First Avenue between Fifth Street and Sixth Street:

Last night aprox 3 a.m. there was a HUGE series of explosions rocking the entire block. What sounded like extremely loud electrical crackling was booming as a sustained series of explosions that lasted 10-15 minutes as giant clouds of acrid smoke rose from a vent in the street near the bike lane directly in front of 87-89 First Ave. 

The bizarre crackling/buzzing/explosion sound had me thinking we were under attack again (9/11 flashback). Either that or some kind of "Cloverfield" situation... Multiple firehouses and emergency agencies arrived. 

Con Ed and other emergency crews are on the scene this morning... no official word on what happened. According to the Citizen app, the FDNY described this as a maintenance hole explosion.

Wednesday's parting shots

Some time on Monday night or early Tuesday morning, someone took a firehose to the Con Ed substation on Avenue A between Sixth Street and Fifth Street...



This past August, someone sprayed DBDBDBDBDBDBDB from Sixth Street all the way across Avenue A. It took two months before Con Ed had the tagggggggg removed.

Thanks to Stacie Joy for the photos!

Pigeon-proofing the Con Ed substation on Avenue A and 5th Street

You may have noticed the activity around the Fifth Street side of the Con Ed substation, a popular roosting spot for pigeons along Avenue A.

For the past 10 days or so, workers have coned off about a quarter of the block here between Avenue A and Avenue B to navigate the two cranes on the scene.

According to one of the workers, the crew is erecting an enclosure to prevent pigeon droppings from befouling the equipment below ...



Not sure exactly what this structure will look like... for now, the workers are still putting in steel supports...



Updated 8 a.m.

The graffiti scrub team was out early this morning power-washing the building... someone had tagged DBDBDBDBDBDBDB from Sixth Street all the way across Avenue A...

Anything to lose sleep over? That empty Raymour & Flanigan space on 14th Street

[Top 4 photos from April]

The Raymour & Flanigan Sleep Shop sits empty now in the base of the Con Ed HQ on 14th Street at Irving Plaza... this outpost of the furniture retail chain moved around the corner to Union Square East earlier this spring...



We've talked with a few people curious about what might be going into this 15,000-square-foot retail space (across from the incoming tech hub) ...



While we mull that over... some legal documents arrived on the door the other day on behalf of the landlord, Con Ed ...



... there's some legalese about a money judgement in the amount of $435,103 (and 77 cents) ...



That's a lot of Comfort Sleeper Sofas.

Tonight's Con Ed blue light special brings back Sandy memories

[Image via @BreakingNews]

The Con Ed transformer explosion tonight in Astoria brought back some memories ... to when the transformer blew at the Con Ed plant on 14th Street and Avenue C the night of Superstorm Sandy in October 2012.

EVG regular William Klayer took this shot at nearly the moment he heard the explosion about 8:13 that night in 2012, bathing the sky in an eerie gray-blue light similar to what people saw tonight ...



And the second explosion the night of Sandy, which KO'd the power to lower Manhattan (as seen from Brooklyn)...

Steamy Saturday

At least on 10th Street and Avenue A where Con Ed (continues) to work... thanks to Brian Orce for the photo!

Con Ed hosting public meeting to discuss cleanup plans for former Gas House District

[East 20th Street looking east toward 1st Avenue in 1938 via]

As you might know, the current home of Stuy Town/Peter Cooper Village was once the Gas House District in the late 19th century and early 20th century. The area was named for the Manufactured Gas Plant (MGP) stations and facilities that converted coal and oil into gas. Con Ed and its predecessors ran the stations. (Read more background here and here.)

Here's a map circa 1897 showing the area when Avenue A (yellow arrow) and Avenue B (blue arrow) crossed north of 14th Street. (Threw in a black arrow for Avenue C too.)


[Click for more detail]

As Ephemeral New York has posted, by the 1930s, most of the storage tanks were gone.

Soon, it was deemed the perfect place to put Met Life’s new middle-class housing developments, Stuyvesant Town and Peter Cooper Village.

In 1945, 3,000 families were moved out of the Gas House District ...

Per reports in Town & Village (here), Con Ed has been testing and looking for contaminants in the ground, groundwater and air in recent years. (The State Department of Environmental Conservation and the State Department of Health are reportedly coordinating the testing.)

From Town & Village on Oct. 19:

According to the study’s findings from investigations in 2006 and 2008, contaminants were found, but located deep in the ground (at least five feet) with most even lower, and in groundwater beneath the site, though that water is not used for drinking. MGP residential levels tested in the air indoors were found to be typical. Outdoor air samples collected were also found to be normal for an urban area. Because of this, Con Ed said in an advisory this week that it’s unlikely people will come into contact with these contaminants, though air monitoring will continue.

Still, the company is now proposing a “remediation” (cleanup) plan for the site that involves, among other things, the placement of wells.

The Stuyvesant Town/Peter Cooper Village Tenants Association and Con Edison are holding a public meeting tomorrow night at 7 to discuss the cleanup plans. The meeting is at Mount Sinai Beth Israel’s Podell Auditorium in the Bernstein Building, 10 Perlman Place, one block west of First Avenue between 15th Street and 16th Street.

In addition, the State Department of Environmental Conservation is accepting public comments in writing Nov. 10. You may submit those to Douglas MacNeal, project manager at the DEC, at douglas.macneal@dec.ny.gov or 625 Broadway, Albany, NY, 12233.

Con Ed has more posted more documents and background here.

Report: Coast Guard estimates that 5,200 gallons of Con Ed's insulating oil spilled into the East River

As previously reported, a transformer containing approximately 37,000 gallons of insulating oil used with electrical equipment failed on Sunday, spilling onto the station property in Downtown Brooklyn and into the East River.

According to DNAinfo, emergency workers have recovered 560 gallons of the synthetic mineral — less than 2 percent of the total lost.

Of the remaining 30,700 gallons of lost oil, some may still be recovered on land around the Farragut Substation, but the U.S. Coast Guard estimated Wednesday that around 5,200 gallons seeped into the river Sunday.

That estimate is based on averages from other cleanups where the agency estimates it can usually collect ten percent of the oil that escapes into water, officials said.

And clean water advocates warn that breakneck currents along the East River make it, "almost the worst possible spill recovery scenario."

The spill occurred at Con Ed's Farragut Substation...



Back to DNAinfo:

Synthetic mineral oil is considered "non-toxic" by the state's DEC and is less harmful to water quality and wildlife than petroleum, though it can still harm fish and birds, according to a Con Edison spokesman.

People should avoid direct contact with the spill as it can cause eye and skin irritation and shouldn't fish in the area, according to the state DEC.

There wasn't any evidence of anything amiss/spilt along the East River Promenade this afternoon...

The usual group of men were fishing between the Manhattan Bridge and Brooklyn Bridge...





... and a little further north...





... and how about that Domino Sugar Refinery redevelopment ...

Report: Crews working to clean up the Con Ed oil spill in the East River

As if the East River wasn’t toxic enough https://t.co/uw15dvcSnU

— New York Post Metro (@nypmetro) May 9, 2017

There have been news reports throughout the day about the Con Ed substation in DUMBO that "spewed dielectric fluid into the East River on Sunday, causing an oil slick that witnesses said could be seen in Queens," as Gothamist put it.

A Coast Guard spokesperson described this as a "catastrophic failure" of a transformer at the substation.

The spill also caused a voltage dip that caused delays on several subway lines and suspended NYC Ferry service.

Here's the official statement from ConEd:

Con Edison is working to contain and clean up transformer insulating oil that was released from one of our substations in Brooklyn near the East River. A transformer containing approximately 37,000 gallons of insulating oil used with electrical equipment, failed on Sunday May 7 at 12:23 p.m., causing much of the oil to be released within the station property in addition to the East River. The equipment failure also caused a system voltage dip that impacted the MTA’s signaling systems on Sunday, resulting in a disruption to some train service.

Con Edison responded immediately, placing boom, absorbents and skimmers in the river. Our own employees and environmental contractors are working on the cleanup, and we are working cooperatively with the U.S. Coast Guard, the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation and other agencies. We continue to assess the volume of oil that migrated to the East River, and how much oil remains in the ground on our property.

The Coast Guard has issued reduced speed restrictions for commercial vessels operating in the area, and banning recreational vessels, to assist the cleanup process. We are taking all actions to contain and clean up the oil as safely and as quickly as possible.

Reader report: Concern over lax stray voltage warnings on East Village streets

An EVG reader shared these three photos from several side streets...

Per the reader: "One of these pictures represents a tow zone. The other two represent a Con Ed shock warning that could electrocute you, your child or your dog. Can you tell the difference?"


[4th Street east of Avenue B]


[5th Street between A and B]


[2nd Street east of Avenue B]

Back to the reader:

"Minimal snow fall each winter brings multiple shock warnings to the East Village yet Con Ed refuses to adequately warn the public despite numerous requests, protests, City Council hearings, injuries, deaths and lawsuits.

"The problem is that no one walking up and down the block (or in and out of those buildings) with their kids or dogs has any idea that they are walking into an electrical hazard that could shock or kill them. All they see is the same caution tape used to signal wet paint or parking restrictions."

Previously on EV Grieve:
Beware of 'stray voltage' here on Avenue A and East 2nd Street

Resident shocked about Con Ed's nonchalance over stray voltage