Physical anti-graffiti on the LES

Ran into one of the city's anti-graffiti crews the other morning on Essex and Broome in the LES. (The sworn enemy of the Graffiti Friend of EV Grieve.)



The fellow was busy waterblasting the tags on the Eisner Brothers memorabilia/sporting goods/underwear store at 75 Essex...






What was coming from the building seemed like blood...pouring into the streets...




I went back hours later to see what was left. I guess they don't do windows.

Essex Street, 5:44 p.m., Sept. 1

Press Advisory: "Stop the violence"

COMMUNITY UNITES TO CALL ON ELECTED OFFICIALS TO STOP SPIRALING VIOLENCE ON THE LOWER EAST SIDE

LOWER EAST SIDE COMMUNITY RESIDENTS JOIN TOGETHER TO PETITION ELECTED OFFICIALS AND GOVERNMENT TO WORK TOGETHER TO STOP THE VIOLENCE, PROVIDE JOB OPPORTUNITIES AND RESTORE FUNDING TO COMMUNITY PROGRAMS

Wednesday, Aug. 26, 11 a.m.

At
CAMPOS PLAZA TENANTS’ ASSOCIATION

205 AVENUE C at 12th STREET

(ENTER THROUGH THE ‘L’ on 12th and C)

Transformer

For some reason I never noticed this Lou Reed street art on Attorney Street...

Have you been toting middle school-style all summer?

From Style.com:

Backpacks showed up on several of the men’s Spring ‘10 runways — a good harbinger of trends to come, alongside the fact that I’ve been seeing hipster kids on the Lower East Side toting middle school-style all summer.

Touring the LES again: "Its unloveliness remains resolute"

Helayne Seidman For The Washington Post

JoAnn Greco, a native New Yorker who frequented the LES as a child, moved to Philadelphia in 1991. She hasn't been back to the LES since then. Greco, a travel writer, did this piece -- Posh Meets Past on New York City's Lower East Side -- for The Washington Post.

A few of her observations.

As I exited the tour, I noticed that the street signs were marked "New York City Orchard Street Bargain District," even though $2 million apartments and $400 hotel rooms have invaded the area.

And!

I peeked into the much-talked-about Hotel on Rivington, all mock mod with its white and red tubular entryway and Space Age touches. Its restaurant, however, celebrates the surroundings with a courtyard situated between picturesquely dilapidated tenements.

And!

It was all very encouraging: newcomers embracing the past and oldsters stepping up to the future. The shop talk may have changed -- some 40 galleries can be found here -- and the eateries may have gotten fancier. Too many tenements have been defaced and even erased. But this place continues to feel different: Its unloveliness remains resolute, the Williamsburg Bridge still swoops off Delancey Street, and the jabber of multiple languages is ever-present. Endangered, maybe. But gone? Never.

Wonder what her opinion would have been after a visit on a Friday night.

Ugh

Guss' Pickles moving to Brooklyn (The Lo-Down)

Looking at 11 Essex Street

The current issue of The Villager has a lengthy piece on 11 Essex Street, a tenement built in 1907.

Landlord didn’t make fixes at Essex St. building; Now displaced tenants are feeling the squeeze

By Julie Shapiro

At the center of an affordable housing battle in Chinatown is a crumbling five-story building that is tilting slowly but steadily into the street.

Across from Seward Park, 11 Essex St.’s top story leans out 9 inches over the ground floor. Inside, metal poles prop up caving-in ceilings. Out back, bricks have tumbled from the facade, leaving gaping holes behind.
“It’s a time bomb,” said Richie Acca, a construction supervisor, as he walked through the silent, dusty building on a recent afternoon. “Would you live here?”

The city agreed. On May 27, the Department of Buildings issued a full-vacate order, giving the rent-protected tenants just a few hours to pack up their apartments before the front door was locked behind them.

In some ways, the vacate was the end of a years-long battle between the Chinese tenants and Sion Misrahi, the building’s owner. In other ways, the battle was just beginning.

The article inspired me to check out the building this past weekend.





An unclaimed UPS package awaits one of the tenants.



Here's more from the article:

When Misrahi bought 11 Essex St. in 2001, the 22 apartments were mostly occupied by low-income Chinese families who had lived there for decades. Until the vacate order, some still paid less than $300 per month for the rent-protected units, in a neighborhood where market rate is now more than five times that much.

One year after Misrahi bought the building, construction by another developer on new condos at 7 Essex St. destabilized 11 Essex’s foundation. Cracks formed and walls shifted. Even after workers from 7 Essex installed bracing at 11 Essex, the 100-year-old structure continued to deteriorate.

In 2004, Misrahi launched a campaign to get the city to vacate 11 Essex St. He wrote to the Department of Buildings, saying 11 Essex was in imminent danger of collapsing and that the city needed to remove the tenants so he could fix the building.

A city engineer told Misrahi that he could make the necessary repairs without tossing out the tenants, and ordered him to do so. Misrahi appealed first to then-Buildings Commissioner Patricia Lancaster, and then to the Board of Standards and Appeals. A panel of architects and engineers heard the case and agreed with D.O.B. that Misrahi could — and should — fix the building immediately.

Confirmed: LES overrun by idiots at night

Matt Harvey delves into the horror show also known as the LES nightlife scene in this week's NYPress cover story. God help us.

In what was once the center of the gentrification goldrush — the section between the Bowery and Essex Streets north of Delancey — most of the businesses left from the boom are nightspots catering to less-sophisticated outer-borough and beyond patrons. Fat Baby, Mason-Dixon and R Bar, along with restaurants that serve over-priced drinks, like Stanton Social or Spitzer’s Corner, dominate. Residents recently suffered the final affront when Zagat ranked the Lower East Side the city’s “hottest nightlife neighborhood,” replacing its more upmarket rival, the Meatpacking District, already renowned for its annoying nightlife clientele.

Susan Stetzer, the district manager for Community Board 3 and a long-term resident of the Lower East Side, says that the area is now an “entertainment center” for the bridge-and tunnel set. “Residents have given up if they still live there,” says Stetzer. She and other residents complain that the streets, shorn of businesses, are empty during the day because the tenants couldn’t pay rents inflated by the influx of nightlife money. Then, at night, it’s wall-to-wall yokels from the suburbs, which, according to Stetzer, “is really depressing.” She’s an advocate of vanishing mom-and-pop shops and dive bars, and says no one who lives in the LES goes to the clubs and lounges. “If they do, they don’t tell me,” she says. Others claim it’s impossible to find a quiet place to have a conversation and a drink.

EV Grieve Etc.: Mourning Edition

The city’s medical examiner said that Lesia Pupshaw died from a drug overdose. (The Villager)

"Cops Friday arrested two teens who have been terrorizing Jewish residents and sites on the Lower East Side with eggs, smoke bombs and swastikas." (Daily News)

New site for NYC bargoers in their 30s (35Saturdays)

The greatest movie ever about teen angst and dancing and like, having jacked-up abs that look good when you wear a tight white tank-top while dancing in a convenient rainstorm -- all in 3D mind you! -- continues to film on the LES (BoweryBoogie)

An appreciation of mom-and-pop shops on the UES (New York Times)

Gothamist has more photos from last night's sky (Uh, Gothamist)

Now please go outside.

Update on the Lower Eastside Girls Club: Groundbreaking set for the fall

I've noticed some work being done on the grounds where the Lower Eastside Girls Club will build their new home on Avenue D between Eighth Street and Seventh Street.



I asked Lyn Pentecost, executive director of the Lower Eastside Girls Club, for an update. Here's her response, via e-mail:

"We have been conducting the city-mandated archeological site survey. So far all the archeologists (a woman crew) have found is late 1800's broken bottles and assorted pieces of pottery. Nothing of note, really — but we will create some kind of display of the 'finds' in the new building."



"As for the trees — the city required they be cut down also, but we have marked and will save the more mature maples. We have located a woman 'miller' who will mill them into boards on-site. The boards will be stored in a nearby basement and return to live again as our café tables."



"Right now we are thinking of a formal October 'groundbreaking' — work will probably have begun, but the fall is a better time to have a ground-breaking party!"

Noted

"Ralph Lauren, Tory Burch and Marc Jacobs have applied their creative savvy to a new kind of line: Local 138's summer cocktail menu. Fashionistas will be flocking to the LES bar this summer to sip Lauren’s Ralph Raspberry Rum Punch, made with crushed raspberries, rum, lemon and lime juice, and Tory Burch’s Tory Tikki Tini, made with grapefruit, mango, strawberry and pineapple. Jacobs — ever the classic — created a modern spin on the timeless mint julep: the Marc Mint Martini." (Gatecrasher via The Cut)

Dumpster of the day

On Suffolk near Delancey. Hmmm, residual waste!



The dumpster was there alongside the space for lease signs at 128 Delancey that BoweryBoogie discussed yesterday....

Speaking of the Lower East Side: A random photo from the EV Grieve archives

On Delancey. I think this sums up the current state of affairs quite nicely.

Report: Bogus help wanted ads fill Hoboken with New Yorkers looking for election work

Since I posted this... I found the photo that I took of one of the ads... This ad is on St. Mark's Place and Avenue A... For some reason, people in the neighborhood looking for work were victims of bullshit political escapades in Hoboken...

A flyer touting $200 pay for election work in Hoboken between 3:30 and 8 p.m. caused prospective hired hands from Manhattan to flood the mile-square city of Hoboken Tuesday. A runoff election is being held for mayor today between councilpeople Peter Cammarano and Dawn Zimmer. The flyer, which did not contain any “paid for” language as required by law, was found hanging on the Lower East Side of Manhattan by several men and women who came to Hoboken today looking for work. (The Hudson Reporter)

Remembering the "Mayor of the LES"

Great story today in The Wall Street Journal about Rudy Mancuso. On Oct. 3, 1951, at the Polo Grounds, Mancuso -- who had one exposure left on his camera -- took what is arguably the most famous photograph in the history of baseball: Giant Bobby Thomson taking an 0-1 fastball from Dodger Ralph Branca over the leftfield wall in the bottom of the ninth. And the Giants win the pennant!



Sadly, though, Mancuso never received credit for the photo. He even lost the negative. As Joshua Prager notes in the Journal, "And so, tragically, the man who shot 'The Shot Heard 'Round the World' was entirely forgotten."

Many years passed. Mancuso's pencil moustache turned from black to white as newswires and then vendors and then Web sites hocked an inexhaustible supply of his photo. He made no money from his shot and held no proof that it was he, an embosser and die cutter living in a Lower East Side walk-up, who'd most famously preserved baseball's greatest moment.

Anyway, you can read the story for yourself to see what became of the negative and to find out what he did at the Hotel Rivington. Mancuso died on May 10 at age 89.

The Times did a piece on photo in September 2006.

Last year at this time on EV Grieve: The Lower East Side — There goes the neighborhood

That's the headline for the May 28, 1984, New York magazine cover story that I recently came across. The piece begins in the early 1980s with the rotting hulk of the Christodora and the young man eager to own it, Harry Skydell.

You can read the article here.

LostLES: A celebration of an iconic neighborhood

On Friday, Michael Brown, an environmental designer and East Village/LES resident, debuts "LostLES" — described as a panoramic installation that celebrates "the vivid character of the Lower East Side through its distinct architectural heritage."



The installation will be on display throughout the summer at Tiny's Giant Sandwich Shop at 129 Rivington St.

Brown, founder and creative director of Lot71, answered several questions about the project via e-mail for EV Grieve.

How will the historic spirit of the Lower East Side be reflected in the installation/mural?

Kevin Gregor, my friend and owner of Tiny's Giant, approached me in February with the idea of designing an installation for his restaurant. Having lived in the East Village/LES for 12-plus years, I have long been a fan of this part of Manhattan.

The neighborhood has a cultural diversity different than any other part of the five boroughs. The historical heritage of immigrants — my family's included — resounds in this area through the architecture, the storefronts, and the lasting cultural markings of industry and arts. I have often drawn from the rawness of spirit and visceral character unique to the EV/LES in my work and my research. Ultimately, I began to consider the "place" (neighborhood, community, environment) as the driving narrative for the work I would create.

LostLES has been described as a true celebration of an iconic
neighborhood. Can you elaborate?

LostLES is a celebration of this iconic neighborhood in several ways. Tiny’s is set behind two plate-glass windowed walls that create a transparent, double-sided environment — from the outside, an intimate space on a vibrant LES street corner; from the inside, court-side seats to experience the vibrancy flow by, in all directions. Inspired by the camera obscura photography of Abelardo Morell, the mural is a reflection of the old Lower East Side superimposed across the new.

I shot a photograph of an old tenement building on Orchard and Broome that we will project inside Tiny's Giant from a single source. The image will streak across the walls and ceiling of the space, and a group of scenic artists (several who are local to the EV/LES) will then paint the mural from this guide. The resulting effect will appear as a cast silhouette, or reflection, of the old architecture that has redefined the sculptural space of the restaurant.

Ultimately, the graphic/2-d image will transform the 3-d space, rendering the space with a new narrative/experience. In the work is a metaphorical play on exterior space over-layed on interior space, as well as a visual comment of the old tenement architecture re-imagining a space for the new. It will transform Tiny's Giant into a jewel-box, experiential stage of the LES.

The work is intended as a gesture of honor to the old architecture, and in our painting style, the scenic artists will be informed by the longstanding traditions of street mural and graffiti artists in the neighborhood.



Some longtime locals are upset about the changing skyline — the condos, the hotels — and feel as if these changes take away from the spirit of the neighborhood. How do you feel about this mix of the old and the new?

I, too, am discouraged by some of changing skyline of the EV/LES. While I'm not entirely well-read on the matter, I find it staggering that this area was not landmarked or otherwise, considering that close to 25 percent of U.S. citizens can trace their genealogical roots to this neighborhood.

I certainly appreciate modern architecture — there are qualities of Tschumi's Blue Building, as well the New Museum, that appeal to me within the context of the EV/LES. However, respect for the past and balance of context for the new is very important to me, and there are certainly several instances of egregious condo-fication here that pain the eye.

Ultimately, the context/balance of which I write guided the choices I made for LostLES. I am hopeful that with my installation I am able to create a space that celebrates the past with a deference to the present. I do not intend my work to be sentimental, but rather simply an encouragement to open one's eyes anew and reflect on our surroundings — cultural, architectural, and spatial.

To learn more about the project and make a pledge to support the work and community, watch this video.

Fun at museums: Appealing to the psycho-sexual crowd

Yesterday, the Real Clear blog posted excerpts from an interview between Maxwell Anderson, director of the Indianapolis Art Museum, and Richard Armstrong, the director of the Guggenheim Museum.

Here's an excerpt I found of interest:

The Guggenheim will increase its appeal to those below 35: "the psycho-sexual center of youth is in the Lower East Side," not near the Guggenheim, "so you have to figure out a way that it's not a stretch for people to get up there." They don't take taxis, he notes, and the Guggenheim in "not close" to the subway.

(As Real Clear's Judith H. Dobrzynski noted, "Gee, the 86th St./Lex Station is, what, a half dozen blocks away?")

Here's a link the video of Anderson and Armstrong.

About those "Chico sightings"

"After announcing three months ago that he would be leaving the Lower East Side to move to Florida, 'Chico sightings' in the neighborhood made some wonder if he was going to go. He said he’ll be leaving for Florida next week." (The Villager)

Previously on EV Grieve.