EVG Etc.: The 'pointless demolition' of East River Park; the city's worst landlords

Morning shadow on Avenue A 

• Mayor insists there won't be a new round of business or school closures amid COVID surge (ABC 7)

• An update on the teens who climbed out their fourth-floor window during the fire at the Jacob Riis Houses Thursday morning (CBS 2 ... previously on EVG) ... There's a GoFundMe for the family at this link. 

• Tompkins Square Middle School students speak out against sexual harassment and assault (CBS 2) 

• What we'd lose if Casa Adela closes (Grub Street ... previously on EVG)

• Eileen Myles on "the pointless demolition" of East River Park (artforum) 

• City Council votes in favor of the SoHo/NoHo rezoning plan (Gothamist) 

• The 2021 list of the city's worst landlords (Patch) 

• Sweet Pickle Books celebrates its first year on the LES (Publishers Weekly) 

• Diversions: Pleasant Gehman and Coyote Shivers lead a group of ducks, swans and geese to Dee Dee Ramones' grave at the Hollywood Forever Cemetery (NBC Los Angeles)

The most-read EVG posts from the past decade

These 10 posts attracted the most views these past 10 years. Quick takeaways: Closures and nudity attract readers.


[Photo via @michalmeer1]

1. There is a woman who has been walking around the East Village topless (May 18, 2012)

2. After 34 years off the Bowery, the Great Jones Café closes tonight (July 26, 2017)

3. Female diner decides to go topless last night at Verso (July 8, 2013)

4. Noted, aka the Target-CBGB tribute (July 21, 2018)



5. [Updating] Explosion on 2nd Avenue and East 7th Street (March 26, 2015)

6. Cafe Orlin will close next month after 36 years in business (Sept. 8, 2017)

7. Exclusive: After 40 years, punk rock mainstay Trash and Vaudeville is leaving St. Mark's Place (July 28, 2015)



8. Veselka honored for its workplace practices with employees over the age of 50 (Jan. 17, 2018)

9. After 20-plus years in the East Village, Obscura Antiques and Oddities is closing (Nov. 7, 2019)

10. You literally can't say this word now at the Continental (Jan. 17, 2018)

A letter from the editor

Hello, my name is John Elsasser and I have been running this website for the past eight years or so.

There are a few people involved with EV Grieve — some of them are anonymous, some of them are not. Regardless, I oversee everything.

I've been thinking about using my name on the site for several years. However, I resisted. It's not a personal website, and the blog isn't about me or what I had for dinner last night or what I did this past weekend. It's a news site about the neighborhood, for the neighborhood. Everyone has a voice and the opportunity to share a story, photo or tip, discuss a liquor license application or the latest Citi Bike seats. At least that's how I see it.

But I've dragged my feet with the announcement. I was waiting for a good moment. A blog anniversary maybe? Or when I retired the site. And the years passed. However, it seems easier now to make this disclosure, helped in part that a news site has designs on publishing a "Who is EVG?" article in the days/weeks ahead. After much prodding from the reporter, I eventually agreed to answer some questions via email for the story, but only once I felt convinced that the outlet wasn't trying to out me. I was ultimately wrong.

In the EVG story, you may learn more about me, such as that I grew up in Ohio, and served as the editor of my high school and college newspapers. I also spent a few years working as a reporter after graduation. Today I edit publications for a nonprofit association.

I started this blog in December 2007 after reading in Page Six that Mona’s and Sophie’s, two bars that I spent some time in, were for sale. For some reason, I got the idea to maybe document the end of days at the bars via a blog.

Anyway, before much more happened, with both the blog and the bars, we learned in early 2008 that Mona’s and Sophie’s would remain open.

And that was that. I wrote in a post that the bars were safe, and the site was going away. However, for some reason, Jeremiah Moss of Vanishing New York found the blog. He encouraged me to continue, to focus on other closings and activities in the neighborhood. So I did, changing the name of the site to EV Grieve.

I've always loved this neighborhood, for better or worse, and I probably always will. That sounds corny, but it's true. That drives me more than anything.

I'm not sure really what's next for the site. We'll see how this goes. [Updated: I'm not planning on shutting down the site right this moment ... I'll keep posting for the time being...]

I apologize to my friends, acquaintances and neighbors as well as various bartenders who were unaware that I was behind the site, especially when you asked me "Did you see this at EVG...?" I wanted to say, "Funny you should mention that…" but it always seemed so awkward. (Having had to do this several times, it was.)

Thank you to everyone who takes the time to visit the site, to leave a comment, pass along a tip. And thank you to all the people who have been contributing on a regular basis through the years (Derek Berg, Dave on 7th, Michael Sean Edwards, Stacie Joy, James Maher and Bobby Williams, among many others).

See you around, though hopefully not while I'm carrying my FroYo in a hoof.

EV Grieve Etc: Mourning Edition

[Plywood on Avenue C by Andrew Adam Newman on Ave C]

Looking at the new ABC No Rio (Curbed)

A new CBGB in the works (WCBS)

A 'no restaurant' policy on Avenue A (DNAinfo)

Watching the stars (in the sky) on Second Avenue Saturday night (BoweryBoogie)

Making cycling safer (Felix Salmon, Reuters)

Department of Transportation responds to bike-share criticism (Runnin' Scared)

Documentary captures spirit of Caffe Capri, a longtime coffee shop in Williamsburg (Jeremiah's Vanishing New York)

And there's a documentary capturing the remaining few leather merchants on Orchard Street (The Lo-Down)

Motorcycle crackdown in Stuy Town (DNAinfo)

Famed mural damaged in Waverly Inn blaze (Eater)

EV Grieve Etc: Mourning Edition

Saving the old Indian trail around Astor Place (Curbed)

The New York of Whit Stillman's "Metropolitan" (Jeremiah's Vanishing NY)

Pulino’s among the NYC eateries where a reservation doesn’t necessarily mean you’ll be seated anytime soon (NYPost)

A new, micro-budgeted film festival for the LES (The Lo-Down)

Another hookah bar for the LES (BoweryBoogie)

Looking at the CB2/SLA February docket (Eater)

Al Qaeda targeting Wall Streeg bigwigs? (Gothamist)

Benefit to pay hip hop legend Kool Herc's medical bills (DNAinfo)

And more from last night's birthday celebration for Ray... This shot is by Vivienne Gucwa. She has more shots on her Flickr page.

And is it safe to go outside yet?

["Day After Tomorrow" image via]

The Cooper Square Serial Vomiter AND the Penistrator strike during the same weekend

Coincidence? In front of the Mars Bar on Second Avenue...

Year-end self-serve: Revisiting some popular EV Grieve posts

These were posts that either solicted a few comments...or linkage elsewhere or just seemed to be popular on the hit list:

When the Christodora House became a Greek house

An EV Grieve editorial (aka, this week's sign of the Apocalypse)

Appreciating what's left of the Bowery while it's still there

Dwell95 fiddled after Wall Street burned

NYPD Blew

Team Bride
confidential

Post scribe thinks turmoil in Africa is so trendy in the news right now!

"The neighborhood was desolate, so underpopulated that landlords would give you a month's free rent just for signing a lease"

The Lower East Side: There goes the neighborhood

These are a few of the photos you'll find when you search for "Carrie Bradshaw" on Flickr

About this time last year

Page Six ran the following item:

December 20, 2007 -- It may be the final nail in the shared coffin of East Village dive bars. Two longstanding holes-in-the-wall, Sophie's on East Fifth Street and its sister spot, Mona's on Avenue B, are up for sale. "The neighborhood has changed so much," co-owner Bob Corton told Page Six. "I love both bars, but they're dinosaurs now." Corton plans to sell the low-lit saloons after the holidays. He has run Sophie's, which adopted its name from its original owner, the late Sophie Polny, since 1986. He opened Mona's in '89. Corton assured us he'll stay in the neighborhood but couldn't predict the future of his beloved drink tanks: "Once the places are sold, what happens to them is really out of my hands."

Sure, we had heard rumors that the bars might be for sale, but it didn't seem like a reality until it appeared in print. (How this ended up in print may be fodder for another post another day.)

So what started back in December 2007 on a drunken, lonely night (always a good combination for doing something stupid, like starting a blog! Plus, actually, it was the middle of the afternoon!) seemed like a temporary thing. At first I'd just collect different news items on the possible sale of the bars. (It wasn't to be gossipy or anything, like, "Melvin wore the same pants again today and drank 17 pints of Yuengling...") Then I thought it could evolve into this project we could all be part of...making little films about the people, etc., who've made Sophie's what it is. Post photos. Chronicling the (possible) end of days. It would be a document capturing a special time and place.

Well, before I ever really figured what to do with the site or told anyone about it, it looked as if the bars were staying in the family. So I retired the site on that positive note.

Right-o! Then, on Feb. 6, Jeremiah Moss, who had been supportive of whatever I had been doing, left a comment encouraging me to continue, to turn my attention to other things in the neighborhood.

Jeremiah Moss said...
hey grieve, whether or not sophie's goes, i hope you'll continue to blog about stuff in our neighborhood. there's plenty of bloggable material to go around!

Phhht! Right!

So, yeah, I continued. Slowly at first. But I was inspired...I began paying attention again to the little things. I became reinvigorated despite the bankbranchification, duanereadification, etc., etc., of the area. I started loving living here again. Really.

Anyway, here I am...grateful to everyone who has been a reader...and I've enjoyed making friends with so many like-minded people who also wonder what the fuck is going on around here. Thank you for being part of this.

A letter from the editor, EV Grieve

Good morning. I hate the Internet. Also, I have a new url — evgrieve.com. The old url is allegedly supposed to redirect people to the new one. That isn't happening. All the links are dead. I'm so suing Al Gore's ass. I'm hoping this will all get sorted out one of these years. In any event, http://evgrieve.com is what to use from here on.

Oh, why you ask? Why do something as stupid as change your url?

Branding. It's all about branding. Branding and paradigm shifts. Soon, I will be rolling out a chain of fro-yo shops — Grieve Berry. I'll be opening five of them on Avenue A between 12th and 13th.

Plus, on the serious side, it made more sense to use evgrieve.com.

Thank you for reading.