Catching up on some Obama graffiti on Inauguration Day

On East Seventh Street near Avenue C.

Confirmed: The Chocolate Bar is gone

Just following up on my post from Friday: The sign has been removed and the interior has been cleared out at the Chocolate Bar, which called East Seventh Street home for nearly seven months.



I'm told they're going to look for another location in the West Village. Any lessons from this? Hmm, maybe candy shops and funeral parlors don't make for good neighbors?


Meanwhile, take a trip back to last summer when the Chocolate Bar first opened. Through the lens of Bob Arihood. His shot (below) from last Sept. 16 is particularly compelling...

Snow on Seventh and B

East Seventh Street and Avenue B.

Perfectly good things someone is throwing away

On East Seventh Street.

On East Seventh Street: Dessert Row seems a little deserted -- Chocolate Bar has closed

Wow. East Seventh Street, particularly on the north side of the street closer to Avenue A, seemed to be booming there for a bit. No more. Well, first, Locks 'n' Lads, the kiddie hair salon, has closed. Their outgoing message on their answering machine confirms it. Meanwhile, farther east, there's activity next to Butter Lane Cupcakes. A neighbor said this vacant space may just become a ground-floor apartment. Then! The Chocolate Bar has been shuttered the last few days. And don't expect to see it open again. I have it on very good authority that this location is officially closed. (And they just opened to so much hoopla in June.) Finally, the signs for the forthcoming East Village Pie Lounge at 131 E. Seventh St. are gone. Maybe that doesn't mean anything, though the spot has seemingly been dormant. The Pie Lounge was to take over the space that previously housed the short-lived Italian cafe Affettati. What gives here? Recession? Stupidly high rents (still)? The East Village wasn't ready for/didn't want/need more high-end dessert places?

The Chocolate Bar yesterday.




Construction next to Butter Lane Cupcakes.



Locks 'N' Lads no more.



P.S.

Oddly enough, the Chocolate Bar's new Egg Cream was just featured in this week's Page Six Magazine.

Noted

Dunno how long this flier has been up...but I just noticed it yesterday at Seventh Street and Avenue A. The flier goes on to accuse an area business owner of hiring "child molesters." It's signed by a "concerned parent in the neighborhood."

Adult Swim doesn't care for your vandalism, really, really, REALLY wants you to watch stupid King of the Hill

We continue to monitor what will likely be the most important news story of the year, if not our lifetime. As you read here exclusively last week, Bobby Hill was, at first, orphaned and maimed on the wall outside the Tile Bar. Then the satanic cult took Bobby's head and legs.

Anyway! Thanks to the tipster who reported yesterday that a NEW set of Hills were back at Seventh Street and First Avenue. Wow. Does Adult Swim have a Hill Swat Team who works OT on weekends...? Is there a warehouse full of Hanks and Peggys and Bobbys ready for such an emergency?




Oh, also noticed the ad on Lafayette and Great Jones.

Exclusive: It's still snowing

And I've always noticed that people are especially nice during the first real snowfall of the season...five strangers smiled and said hello to me while I was walking through Tompkins Square Park.

Satanists behead Bobby Hill, warn of future violence against chubby Texans*

Uh-oh! Since our previous post, there has been further desecration of the Hill family. Poor Bobby. No legs. No head. Shall we call him Bob?



Who is taking responsibility?



The happy family just last week!


[Bottom photo via Chet Chat with Chet]

* OK, that last part isn't true.

Someone done took Hank and Peggy Hill (and Bobby's left leg)

Yesterday at Seventh Street and First Avenue:



And Dec. 10...:

[Bottom photo via Chet Chat with Chet]

Before the theft, Bobby's face got tagged.

Previously on EV Grieve:
More King of the Hill promo sightings; residents wonder how a show that was never, ever funny remained on the air for so many years

Meter beaters

Jeremiah has the gory photos of the old parking meters being ripped out of the ground today in the East Village.

Earlier today on EV Grieve:
More old-school parking meters to meet their maker, join 45 RPM jukeboxes in coin heaven

More old-school parking meters to meet their maker, join 45 RPM jukeboxes in coin heaven

Jeremiah had the post last month on the end of the old parking meters...and the introduction of the Muni-Meters. Starting today, more of the old meters will be removed. This sign was on East Seventh Street between First Avenue and Second Avenue.



Soon, more sterile Muni-Meters to match the increasingly sterile city.

A Leshko's quickie

[Updated: Sorry, I missed doing this earlier. Bob Arihood's words and photos are always compelling at Neither More Nor Less. Check out some of his shots that include Leshko's.]

There's a photo of the late lamented Leshko's (not that one above us) on the corner of Avenue A and Seventh Street in my post on the film What About Me from earlier today. Anywho, I was trying to remember when the original Leshko's closed. (1999.) So I did a little research. Just wanted a share a few passages from articles I found on the place. And I am not being fucking nostalgic, OK! I swear! I love the Yuck Cafe that's there now! Uh, Yeti Cafe, sorry! Er, Yuca.

As Slavs of New York wrote in October 2005:

As more and more Slavs move out of the East Village, their presence is being felt less and less. Two major landmarks recently disappeared: Leshko's and Kiev.

Of course, both are still standing. It's just that both have been renovated, reimagined and reopened, losing much (if not all) of their Ukrainian flavor along the way.

First to go was Leshko's (111 Avenue A at 7th Street), which opened in 1957. New owners closed down the old-school favorite in 1999 and turned it into something that ended up in an issue of Wallpaper* not long after. The menu lost almost all of its Slavic dishes, with the exception of pierogies. But they were reworked almost beyond recognition - mushroom and leek pierogies?

And from the Times of New York in 2000:

For decades, Leshko's has held down a corner near Tompkins Square Park in what was once called the Pirogi Belt, in deference to the neighborhood's Slavic population. Aside from providing early-morning and late-night sustenance to the local clubbing crowd, Leshko's served Ukrainian staples like cabbage soup, boiled beef and the occasional special of jellied pigs' feet.

The Leshko family sold the restaurant in the 1970's, though, and it began to decline, becoming grungier and less and less inviting. Its site, at Avenue A and Seventh Street, is heavily trafficked, and one can easily imagine the new owners selling out to, say, the Gap or Starbucks, one further step in homogenizing the East Village. The owners did, in fact, want to sell the restaurant, but the Leshko family still owned the building, and any new tenant required its approval. The family preferred to maintain the site as a restaurant.

Meanwhile, two business partners who wanted to open a restaurant, Robert Pontarelli and Stephen Heighton, finding that Leshko's was for sale, decided to pursue it. They met with Jerry Leshko, a son of the original owners, who is an art history professor at Smith College, and hit it off. Leshko's was theirs.

First came a thorough renovation. The crumbling coffee shop interior was replaced by handsome hearthstone columns, a dark oak floor, Danish modern lamps and beige-and-white Saarinen chairs offset by burgundy banquettes and a black Lucite bar. The winning look is part Frank Lloyd Wright and part Dick Van Dyke Show.

From here the corner became the Yuca Cafe. Saw Sam Shepard eating there once.

Updated: Sorry, I missed doing this earlier. Bob Arihood's words and photos are always compelling at Neither More Nor Less. Check out some of his shots that include Leshko's.

The 7B days of Christmas

Horseshoe Bar. 7B. Vazac's. Always looks nice during the holidays.

Dumpster of the day (night edition)

On East Seventh Street near Avenue C on Wednesday night.

Retail space available at Cooper Union (plus: watching the construction from day one)

Despite having been following the new Cooper Union project, I didn't realize there was going to be retail space in the building at Cooper Square between Seventh Street and Sixth Street — 3,000-square feet of it.



"Non cooking food?" Uh, how about FroYo? You don't really have to cook that. Just take it out of the bag and throw it in a machine. Then charge $6 for a three-ounce cup!

By the way, have you been watching the construction at the new Cooper Union building via its LIVE Web cam? You can go all the way back to 2003 and watch it all over again...



How depressing.

What's new on Lard Street?

Was on Dessert Row the other...er, Seventh Street...the Butter Lane Cupcakes store is now open for business.



Some good news: The historic "Licensed Undertaker" sign is still intact on the building. Of course, the other half of this space is still for rent...



Previously on EV Grieve:
Something else to threaten the very soul of the East Village: Cupcakes

Seventh Street, 3:15 p.m., Nov. 23

Just desserts for Seventh Street?

Yesterday, I mentioned that Butter Lane Cupcakes will be opening soon at 123 E. Seventh St. between Avenue A and First Avenue. Last night, I noticed the previously vacated (and seemingly short-lived) Italian cafe Affettati at 131 E. Seventh St. ...

...will be home to the forthcoming East Village Pie Lounge.




The sign on the door promises everything from Apple to Pecan to Banana Cream Coconut pie -- for $5.25 a slice. Now this stretch of Seventh Street already counts the Chocolate Bar at 127 as a tenant (since June).

[Deathly silence]

So that's the Chocolate Bar. And Pie Lounge. Can we expect, say, the Tapioca Tavern in the vacant store front at 125 E. Seventh St.?

Something else to threaten the very soul of the East Village: Cupcakes

Yes, indeed! Just a little frosty something for you to enjoy during the economic meltdown! As Eater has noted, Butter Lane Cupcakes will soon call 123 E. Seventh Street home. According to their Web site, "We think of it as cupcakes for grownups."

Previously, the nonprofit Bodanna Studio & Gallery was here. They were dedicated to helping inner-city youth...and before that, the Theo Wolinnin funeral home.





Let's just hope the Cupcakers keep the historic "Licensed Undertaker" sign on the building.



For further reading, all you cupmudgeons:
Cupcake trash (Jeremiah's Vanishing New York)