Today's hawk in Tompkins Square Park

Photos by Bobby Williams.

Week in Grieview

[East Ninth Street near Broadway looking east toward 51 Astor Place]

Here is the 'East Village3' (Monday)

The excavation outside the former Cabrini Center (Monday)

Out and About with Mistress Evil (Wednesday)

The Lucky Cheng's sign comes down (Monday)

Photos from the Coney Island USA Spring Gala (Sunday)

Zaragoza turns 13 (Thursday)

The Bleecker Bob's sale is under way (Friday)

Papaya King for St. Mark's Place (Thursday)

Steamed at Con Ed (Monday)

Laundry-bistro still in the works (Friday)

Flea Market Cafe reopened (Monday)

A good sign for the Native Bean (Tuesday)

Jennifer's Way Bakery to star in reality-TV pilot (Wednesday)

Trees for 51 Astor Place (Wednesday)

[Video] Really liking this board (Thursday)

A Subway seized on East 14th Street (Tuesday)

A gluten-free Italian cafe for East Fifth Street (Wednesday)

Where is Biker Bill? (Tuesday)

A Ramones movie? (Wednesday)

... and Richard Hell at East Village Radio (Wednesday)


[Richard Hell photo for EV Grieve by James Maher]

Empire of the fog

A photogenic morning, in general... this shot from the East Village comes via @stevemotts

East Village stories to watch in 2013 (Part 1)

• The reopening of St. Brigid's on Avenue B

[From October]

The restoration/renovation of the historic Avenue B church is winding down after several years... last we heard from a St. Brigid's watcher, the church is expected to reopen in the first few months of this year... and we can't wait to see the inside... Bonus question: Will neighbors ever get used to the bells?

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• Filling in the Mystery Lot

Ah, our old friend the Mystery Lot...

[Some time ago]

...will soon look like this on East 14th Street/13th Street east of Third Avenue...

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• The end (and new beginning) of Astor Place

Workers are quickly erecting the 430,000-square-foot office complex at 51 Astor Place ... which will shape up this year to look like...



Building aside, the city is also expected to dramatically reconfigure streets, parks and traffic islands around Astor Place and Cooper Union ... leaving us with that Midtown feeling...

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• 84 Third Ave. grows taller

We learned last month that the Karl Fischer-designed building rising at 84 Third Avenue at East 12th Street will be 12 stories, not nine as originally expected. Of any of the area's new development, this just may look like the most out-of-place project. And that's saying something.

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• A dorm for 35 Cooper Square

The former 35 Cooper Square was demolished 18 months ago here at East Sixth Street. Perhaps soon in the New Year we will learn more about developer Arun Bhatia's plans for a 9-story dorm, which are currently on file with the DOB.

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• Something for 100 Avenue A

[A scene outside 100 Avenue A yesterday by Bobby Williams]

Not much seems to be happening at 100 Avenue A, where East Village Farms closed in February 2012. The city disapproved the first round of plans to renovate the space, including adding a "dwelling unit" and roof garden on the upper floors.

The sidewalk outside the storefront has mostly been used to accommodate some people in need of a place to sleep this past year.

However, in one small bit of progress, the DOB did approve the foundation work here back on Nov. 9, per city records. Will we finally see work start on the renovations in 2013?

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• Development for the former Mary Help of Christians school, church and lot

Staying on Avenue A ... the saga of the Mary Help of Christians Catholic Church enters its fifth year... The Catholic Archdiocese sold the church property, which includes the Don Bosco Salesians rectory adjacent to the church and the church's former school on East 11th Street, for a reported $41 million. Douglas Steiner, owner of the Brooklyn Navy Yard's Steiner Studios, is the new owner, and he has plans for in the works for an 80/20 residential development.

...and this promises to be an enormous development ...

[Via Off the Grid]

Will the church be demolished to make way for the new housing? (The Landmarks Preservation Commission has already turned down requests to landmark the circa-1917 church.) Or will at least part of the church be incorporated into the design of the new building, much like NYU did by sort of including the façade of St. Ann's into the entrance of the 12th Street dorm?

Meanwhile, nothing will likely happen with the new development until workers have shored up the eastern wall at the East Side Community School on East 12th Street.

Tomorrow: East Village stories to watch in 2013 (Part 2)

Unsilent Night for a bad Santa kind of day in the East Village

[Unsilent Night in 2010 by Bobby Williams]

In case that you are looking for a group activity Saturday night in the East Village that doesn't involve dressing like Santa, acting like a jackass, buying Jäger bombs (and demanding that the bartender sets up a Jäger-train), terrorizing people out running errands, yelling for your friends who left a few minutes earlier and are already at next bar, then you're in luck...

It's time for the annual Unsilent Night, the boombox caroling walk... Composer Phil Kline's holiday tradition got its start in 1992... meeting place is 7 at the Arch at Washington Square Park... and the group makes its way over to Tompkins Square Park.

Oh, and what if the Santas come across the carolers...? Unsilent Night has asked nicely...

@santacon And please don't fuck with Unsilent Night! Enjoy it as it passes by ….

— Unsilent Night (@UnsilentTweet) December 13, 2012

Hot buns: Burger-burlesque concept on tap for the East Village

Per DNAinfo's Serena Solomon today:

A new restaurant project is looking to blend burgers with burlesque in the East Village, under a plan by a veteran nightlife operator to combine classic American fare with the risqué dance performance.

The man behind the concept is Timothy Simpson, aka Lorenzo Cortelli, who has worked for BR Guest Hospitality, which owns the Dos Caminos Mexican food chain.

And in a Craigslist ad, he is looking for an investor with $150,000 to be part of this project. (That posting has expired.)

Back to the article:

The concept is "fully developed," said Simpson, who has a business plan in place and is eyeing several existing bars near bustling St. Mark’s Place to convert into a space with a 1890s Paris feel in the coming months.

[Image via ...and it is not part of this project]

Fall Friday flashback: Yesterday's First Avenue manhole explosion, the movie

On Fridays this fall, and probably winter and spring and... we'll post one of the 12,000-plus EVG, uh, posts from yesteryear... like this one from Oct. 27, 2010 ...

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Many thanks to EV Grieve reader Jason B. for this video...

A few highlights:

• The onlooker in the beginning eating a banana
• The firefighter dragging the Voice box out of harm's way (32-second mark)
• The young man crossing the street right in front of the smoking manhole and getting yelled at (46-second mark)

Previously on EV Grieve:
[Updated]: Explosion, fire on First Avenue and Ninth Street

154 Second Avenue starting to show off its girders

Two months have passed since we checked in on the progress at 154 Second Ave., where workers will be adding several new floors for "luxury rental apartments."

Kind of hard to say what's happening behind the scaffolding. EVG reader Terry Howell notes that most of July brought intermittent banging and knocking without much evidence of actual "construction."

Then! In early August, he noticed that workers delivered a pile of girders. Let's take a look at the latest photos that he shared...

Terry also hears that the remaining structure facade will not be kept — eventually it will all be demolished.

Here's what the address looked like in the 1940s, via Vanishing New York...

And one day...

Previously on EV Grieve:
Former funeral home looks to double in size with help from 'the controversial penthouse king of the East Village'

Redeveloped funeral home looking for a few live retail tenants

The walls come tumbling down at 154 Second Avenue

Report: Historic Anglo-Italianate townhouse on East 10th Street to serve as Olsen twin love nest

You know those beautiful homes at 123-125 E. 10th St. between Second Avenue and Third Avenues, the single-family Anglo-Italianate townhouses? These.


After nearly four years on the market, Crain's reported in June that an unnamed buyer picked up the five-story, 4,200-square-foot home at No. 123 close to its asking price of $6.25 million. (No. 125 remains on the market.)

Today, Page Six reveals who bought the house: Olivier Sarkozy, who is the half-brother of the former French president as well as the beau of Olsen twin Mary-Kate.

Per Page Six, he "plans to share the palatial 146-year-old love nest with Olsen, sources said. Sarkozy is buying it because he and Olsen “like that it is old,” a real estate insider told The Post’s Jennifer Gould Keil. The 4,200-square-foot home, built the year Abraham Lincoln took office, was designed by architect James Renwick Jr., best-known for St. Patrick’s Cathedral and the Smithsonian."

And!

"The sale has brokers wondering if Mary-Kate’s sister Ashley will snap up the house’s twin."

[Heh — twin]

Anyway, here's a look inside the place from a previous post. Meanwhile, we have some Photoshopping to do...

Is the 108-year-old Lanza's Italian restaurant going Mexican?

EVG reader Tony Devers sent along these photos from outside the 108-year old Italian joint Lanza's (an EVG favorite) on First Avenue...

What's that? Help wanted for ... "Mexican cuisine" ...?

Are they changing concepts?

Not at all, said Hugo Alonso at Lanza's, which is part of the Sal Anthony family. They are actually opening a Mexican restaurant on 13th Street and Broadway.

OK, phew...

And more about the new restaurant on 13th Street and Broadway later...

Buses, rent, gardens main topics at East Village town hall with Scott Stringer

[Jacob Anderson]

By Jacob Anderson

The Manhattan Borough President addressed many issues at the town hall meeting last night at the Tompkins Square Park library branch, but did not once mention his bid for Mayor. He told the standing room-only-crowd of more than 100 people that he had no agenda for the evening.

“Basically this is open mic night in the Village,” Stringer said.

Several residents complained about the neighborhood bus routes that were cut two years ago. Stringer said he supports getting more money for public transit by bringing back the pre-1999 commuter tax for people traveling into the city to work. He said there has been resistance to that around the tri-state area.

“My name-recognition has gone up in New Jersey,” Stringer said.

“Just leave a couple of dollars so we can protect you and clean up after you,” he added. “It makes sense, Governor Christie, to help us here.”

Stringer said the effect of MTA cuts in the East Village was something that stood out to him.

“I learned more about the lack of bus service on multiple routes that I don’t think I fully engaged prior to tonight’s meeting,” he told me after the meeting.

The MTA will be restoring some bus lines, but Marcus Book of the Department of Transportation said they don’t yet know which routes will come back. (The M9 will return, according to a statement made by Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver this week.)

[Via Scott Stringer's Twitter account]

Resident Brian Cooper and others said they are concerned about rent increases. Cooper said his mother lives in public housing, and that some people can’t afford to pay more than they already are. Another resident said rent was raised in 2008 under the auspices of oil costing $150 a barrel, and asked why, when oil prices dropped back down again, rent didn’t.

“To this day I am totally befuddled as to how they calculate what a reasonable rent increase could be,” Stringer said. He added that he wants a better rent guidelines system, and a “true, independent body” to oversee it.

Stringer was flanked by about a dozen representatives from various city government departments —NYPD, housing, transportation, etc. — who would chime in on specific issues, as well as by State Senator Daniel Squadron, City Councilwoman Rosie Mendez, and new Community Board 3 chairwoman Gigi Li.

Several gardeners apparently took a break from their weeding to show up. One asked about getting community gardens permanently protected. Both Stringer and Mendez said that they support permanent protection. Stringer added his support for people who grow their own food on neighborhood farms. He said he wants to create an agency to oversee agriculture and farmers markets for the city.

Some people expressed frustration over slow or no responses from Stringer’s office and other departments, like the NYCHA and the 9th Precinct. Stringer stayed upbeat, and told pretty much everyone with a specific complaint that his office would follow up with them. Afterwards, one man said to a member of Stringer’s staff, “Tell him he’s a nice guy. I like him.”

[Via Scott Stringer's Twitter account]

Other notes from the meeting:

• Anthony Donovan, who lives in an East 4th Street building owned by not-so-popular landlord Ben Shaoul, said that he’s being taken advantage of. Stringer’s response: “We’ve got to do better getting the bad actors to stand down.”

• Several people came out to oppose the Spectra pipeline, which is scheduled to be built in the West Village. They warned of dangerously high levels of radon gas. Stringer called himself “an intervener” on the pipeline, and said he’s working with scientists on the radon issue. When he was pushed to take a position: “I’m not going to say I oppose something that we know is going to happen.”

• Stringer said he has allocated $3 million for solar panels on school roofs.

• The award for biggest applause went to Judith Zaborowski, the co-chair of the 9th Street A-1 Block Association, who said to the panel of city employees who had occasionally fielded questions throughout the evening: “I’m not sure that you’ve even walked around this neighborhood, or have any idea about the transportation, and the bars, and the noise, and the NYU students that stay here for a year, and have no respect for those of us who are here.”

• Community gardeners will not be given a wrench to open fire hydrants to water their gardens. They can call the fire department for that.

Jacob Anderson is a freelance reporter in the East Village.

Temporary sunroof for 154 Second Ave.

[Terry Howell]

We walked by 154 Second Ave., the former Sigmund Schwartz Gramercy Park Chapel between East Ninth Street and East 10th Street, the other day and looked inside the opened plywood. Not much left on the inside! The sun was pouring into the space from where there was a roof.

For a better angle... EVG reader Terry Howell provided an aerial view showing the progress here where workers are adding three new floors for luxury apartments...

And for some contrast... how the building looked in February...

Previously on EV Grieve:
Former funeral home looks to double in size with help from 'the controversial penthouse king of the East Village'

Redeveloped funeral home looking for a few live retail tenants

The walls come tumbling down at 154 Second Avenue

Summertime in New York City: The East Village 1991

In honor of the first official day of summer... a video titled "Summertime in New York City: The East Village 1991."



Here's the description via YouTube:

The Lower East side, 1991, NYC. I weep when I see this. I used to live here. 13th street between B and C. With Khusenaton, on flute. I see him step right in here, he used to do that when I read. Intense, beautiful fantastic. Dead. He died that winter. I can remember the way he used to say, "here comes James." "Hardcore. too deep." A beautiful human being. He told the truth, and was my friend. It seems long ago, and like yesterday.

H/T to Neighborhoodr for first posting this video several weeks ago.

165 Avenue B back on the market

There's a new broker for 165 Avenue B, the building just north of East 10th Street.... (we looked at it here in February 2011 ...)



Here's the Corcoran listing:

Great live/work 'loft' building for sale on a prime block in the East Village; just steps from Tompkins Square Park. Approximately 5,700 square feet, this six unit apartment building has tremendous upside since the spaces can be used for residential, commercial and retail. Four of the units can be delivered vacant and the remaining two within one year. The building has a commercial overlay which allows the ground floor to be used as retail or commercial space. The five story building is 23'8" wide with two and three bedroom floor through apartments on the top four floors and two commercial units on the ground floor, one with a separate entrance. The lot is 93' deep with a large garden, there is a two story extension on the rear ... 1,865 sq ft of air rights remain. Zoned R7-2 with a C1-5 overlay.

Not sure what the future will hold here... but I did like the last retail tenant, as I've written... Waldorf Hysteria ...



[Waldorf image via]

The walls come tumbling down at 154 Second Avenue

We continue to keep tabs on 154 Second Ave., the former Sigmund Schwartz Gramercy Park Chapel between East Ninth Street and East 10th Street ... where workers will be adding several new floors for "luxury rental apartments" ...

[Image from last summer via Off the Grid]

... we recently looked in the door and spotted some interior demolition... but what's going on out back?

EVG reader Terry Howell notes that workers started serious demolition this week. First, it took four guys and a scaffold to get rid of the chimney in the corner...



Per Terry: "Then a jackhammer arrived and the walls came tumblin' down..."









Previously on EV Grieve:
Former funeral home looks to double in size with help from 'the controversial penthouse king of the East Village'

Redeveloped funeral home looking for a few live retail tenants

Why yes — you can rent an apartment on East Fifth Street between A and B for $13,000 a month

The last time that we checked in on 532 E. Fifth St. between Avenue A and Avenue B, the new, eco-friendly building had two-bedroom apartments for upwards of $5,600. We paid a return visit to Streeteasy and found one listing for — $13,000. (And no fee — ha!)

Just a few specifics mentioned at the No Fee Rentals website ... (Three bathrooms ... private balcony... deck) It is available starting today...

The listing for a $13,000-a-month apartment hilariously mentions that "The East Village attracts people not only for its diversity, but for its relatively affordable rents."

Hell, yeah — we're just giving stuff away over here!

The market price has been set on this block. Your move, Ben.

Previously on EV Grieve:
Beaming up on Fifth Street

Demolition on East Fifth Street

On the way: A five-story apartment building for Fifth Street

Witness to a new development: Avenue C's Kingdom Hall back on the market

The 3,050-square-foot, two-story Kingdom Hall owned by the Jehovah's Witnesses is on the market, Crain's reported yesterday. The site at 67 Avenue C near Fifth Street is zoned for a residential property of up to 10,000 square feet. Crain's notes that there is no asking price on the space.

Robert Knakal, chairman of Massey Knakal Realty Services, who's marketing the property, said: "I am sure this property will be highly sought after by smaller residential developers."

Perhaps. But the current space is 3,050 square feet. And it's zoned for up to 10,000 square feet. You can do the math.

[Via Curbed August 2009]

There isn't the first name this property has been listed. I wrote about a potential sale back in August 2009 during a guest stint at Curbed.

Per that post:

For sale signs went up [last] week at the Lower Manhattan Congregation Jehovah's Witness at 67 Avenue C near East 5th Street. According to the Massey Knakal listing for the property, the space "is ideal for a user, investor or developer and will be delivered vacant." Indeed; asking $2.2 million.

Previously on EV Grieve:
New world order for Avenue C?

Celebrating 28 years of saying 'There goes the neighborhood'

We trot this one out every so often... It's the cover story from the May 28, 1984, New York magazine ... The article talks about the influx of chain stores, art galleries and chic cafes. "And real-estate values are exploding" as a result. Said one longtime resident on the changes: "I've lived in my rent-controlled apartment for years and pay $115 a month. I live on the Lower East Side. The young kids who just moved in upstairs and pay $700 a month for the same space — they live in the East Village."

Find the whole article here.

So what's the loudest block in the East Village?

We did that post last week about a reader looking for a quiet block to live on (helpful, by the way!) ... asking if such a thing even existed these days. (This post.)

Following that, another reader thought it might be sorta therapeutic to prompt a discussion about the loudest block in the neighborhood. Bar noise. Traffic noise. Noise noise. The usual.

Sure. What the Hell.

So.

I've never lived on these blocks, but they seem as if they could be really loud at times.

• St. Mark's Place closer to Avenue A (apartments facing St. Mark's Place)

• Third Avenue (OK, maybe between 10th and 12th...)

• Near or around Avenue A and Houston

Anyone else?

[File photo outside Superdive back in the day]

[Updated] 4 photos of incoming East Village restaurants

Views yesterday of ... Michael White's pizzeria Nicoletta on Second Avenue at 10th Street...

... Iconic Hand Rolls on First Avenue at St. Mark's Place...

[Bobby Williams]

... Jim Power working on mosaics at the Bean on First Avenue at Ninth Street...

[Bobby Williams]

... and a menu meeting at Calliope on Second Avenue at East Fourth Street...

[EVG reader Pedro]

Updated 3:30 p.m. —
Thrillist has a Calliope preview here.