The last piece of the COVID-19 memorial that has been on the southeast corner of Avenue A and 10th Street since March 26 is gone.
In recent weeks, only the memorial — titled "Beacon of Hope" — atop the brick column remained. This was after someone vandalized the work once again a few weeks back. (This happened multipletimes in the spring.)
It was originally erected in honor of Edd Conboy, a licensed therapist and director of social services at Broad Street Ministry in Philadelphia, who died on March 20 of a stroke. He was 69. His brother Jim, an East Village artist, created the memorial after his family was unable to hold a funeral in the midst of the COVID-19 outbreak.
The memorial continued to evolve this spring to honor those who died during the pandemic.
Carol Porteous-Fall, a longtime East Village resident, eco-activist and yoga enthusiast, died on July 20 after being diagnosed with leukemia in the spring.
An online memorial service is set for tomorrow, Saturday, Aug. 1 at 3 p.m. You may find the memorial tomorrow at this link.
A GoFundMe campaign that was established by her friends in the spring is now being used to settle her estate and provide her son Lateef with some aid.
I’m excited about music, yoga, psychology, social justice, dancing, reading, watching, community gardens, cultures, riding my bike around the city, and more ... just by experiencing life from various vantage points, really, and getting to know all kinds of people.
Sad news from the Sixth Street Community Center today: Annette Averette, a longtime neighborhood activist, died on Sunday after a long battle with cancer.
Here's more information via the EVG inbox...
Annette was Howard Brandstein’s partner at Sixth Street Community Center for over 25 years. Together they developed programs in community supported agriculture, youth and environmental advocacy that continue to support our LES neighborhoods. In 2009, Annette founded our Organic Soul Cafe where she served as chef and manager.
Prior to working at Sixth Street, Annette was Executive Director of the LES Anti-Displacement Project, where for seven years she provided vital assistance to tenants fighting to secure their homes.
Thank you to all who have extended your support during this difficult time. Annette is legendary and her spirit will remain with us forever. There is so much more to say about Annette-Her wisdom, political activism, legal and financial savvy, great cooking and, above all, her beautiful and caring soul. We will miss her deeply.
Tomorrow (July 30) afternoon, the Sixth Street Community Center (638 E. Sixth St. between B and C) will be honoring her memory from 4-7 p.m.
Aside from a career working the door at high-end clubs in the day, he was "a made-to-measure specialist helping men’s wear customers at Barneys and other retailers and as a consultant for, and producer of, fashion shows."
As a young man in London, Frans spent his meager allowance on King's Road emulating the looks of style icons the likes of David Bowie and Brian Ferry. He worked as a bespoke, made to measure consultant for Alfred Dunhill, Jil Sander, Barney's and Hickey Freeman. He often advised that "The suit is always the best garment to flatter a man."
According to his friend Sudha Chinniah: "Frans was absolutely the most stylish man in any room he entered, but dominated much more profoundly in his elegance of character and ability to connect with anyone he met."
Phyllis Somerville, a longtime St. Mark's Place resident who enjoyed a lengthy career as an actor in film, TV and Broadway productions, died last Thursday. Paul Hilepo, her manager, told The Hollywood Reporter that she died of natural causes. She was 76.
"She was the consummate professional who lived her dream of being a working actress her entire life in NYC which spanned over 45 years," Hilepo said.
Somerville made her Broadway debut in 1975 in the musical "Over Here!" She most recently appeared in Aaron Sorkin's Broadway adaptation of "To Kill a Mockingbird."
Her TV credits included "The Big C," "NYPD Blue" and "Daredevil" while her film highlights were "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button" and "Poms."
"She took pride in calling herself a New Yorker but she had salt-of-the-Earth Midwestern roots, which she was also proud of," Hilepo told the Associated Press.
Fellow St. Mark's Place resident David Godlis paid tribute to her on Instagram...
East Village resident Margaret Morton, a professor at Cooper Union and photographer who documented the city's homeless, died on June 27 in her apartment on East 10th Street. Her sister told The New York Times that Morton was being treated for a form of leukemia.
Through a series of books, including "Transitory Gardens, Uprooted Lives" (1993), "The Tunnel: The Underground Homeless of New York City" (1995) and "Glass House" (2004), Morton humanely captured the everyday lives of her subjects.
From her apartment on East 10th Street ... Morton had a front row view of the homeless encampments that engulfed Tompkins Square Park in the late 1980s. As she walked to work at Cooper Union, where she was a professor, she began to photograph these improvised structures, showing the ways people were moved to make themselves at home even when they had so little.
When the city bulldozed the park in late 1989, scattering those who lived there, Ms. Morton followed them and spent the next 10 years documenting their world and that of others on the margins, not only telling their stories but also advocating for their welfare. The author Philip Lopate, who described her as "our modern-day Jacob Riis," said recently that "she pulled off a rare combination of socially engaged photography that was also formally exquisite."
She wrote this in 2004 — 10 years after the NYPD evicted the teens:
"Gentrification has transformed the East Village, erasing nearly every memory of its history as a refuge for ethnic groups and the radical fringe. Although I did not realize it at the time, the story of 'Glass House' marks the end of an era."
Friends and former students created a Facebook group in her honor. You can read tributes to her here.
You can find her website with samples of her work at this link.
Holly Lane, a longtime East Village resident who worked in music, died suddenly on June 26. She was 59. A cause of death was not revealed.
A friend shared this information:
A consummate music professional, Holly was the common bond between many groups of people and could always be found networking and connecting friends and colleagues.
Holly was happiest when she was attending a rumba in the city or hearing an indie band perform. She was enthusiastic and knowledgeable about the music genres she adored. She relished talking about drums, sound systems and the record label business — and was always ready to share her passions.
A fierce advocate for artists’ rights, she strived to protect their assets and monetize their talents.
She leaves behind her sister, Jeanine Owen, a brother, nieces, grand nieces and also her beloved cats Porter and Esme, and many devoted friends. Holly was predeceased by her parents and sister Lorraine. Memorial services will be announced at a future date.
David Gonzales, a longtime employee at Frank Restaurant on Second Avenue, died on Saturday from complications due to COVID-19. He was 55.
He had been on a ventilator at Albany Medical Center since April 4.
Gonzales started nearly 15 years ago as a maintenance manager at the restaurant between Fifth Street and Sixth Street.
In an Instagram post, chef-owner Frank Prisinzano paid tribute to Gonzales:
I don’t know what we are going to do without David. Before this pandemic I would never have imagined it even possible to not have David. He was another of my sons
My entire restaurant family is crushed. He was really a savior they called for help. We feel a huge hole in our hearts.
He is survived by his wife and six children as well as his mother. The restaurant has a GoFundMe account to help pay for his funeral expenses.
Gonzales is the second member of the Frank-Supper-Lil' Frankies family to die from COVID-19. Miguel Grande, known as the Pasta King at Supper on Second Street, died in late April at Elmhurst Hospital in Queens.
Frances Goldin, a lifelong preservationist and community activist, died on Sunday in her East Village apartment, according to published reports. She was 95.
As The New York Timesnoted, Goldin, who was born in Queens in 1924, "won her first street brawl when she was 11 and as a grown-up never stopped fighting to safeguard her beloved Lower East Side from upscale developers."
Here's more from the Times on her remarkable life:
An unreconstructed socialist, Ms. Goldin was an advocate for affordable housing and a staunch defender of the poor.
Her activism extended over two careers. In one, she was a civic leader in a vintage neighborhood that was being gussied up with fancy names (“as soon as they said ‘East Village,’ they tripled the rent,” she told The New York Times in 1984) and studded with asymmetrical buildings girdled in glass.
In the other, from 1977, she was a literary agent who represented progressive authors, including Susan Brownmiller, Martin Duberman, Juan Gonzalez, Robert Meeropol, Frances Fox Piven and the New York City historian Mike Wallace. The novelist Barbara Kingsolver chose Ms. Goldin on the basis of her advertisement that read, “I do not represent any material that is sexist, ageist or gratuitously violent.”
Goldin was the founder of both the Metropolitan Council on Housing and the Cooper Square Committee.
Tributes to her on Twitter included...
Remembering our fierce and inspiring co-founder, Frances Goldin, who passed away on Saturday. Her legacy is enormous, much like her love for the Lower East Side and for all communities struggling for social justice.
Very sorry to hear that Frances Goldin, legendary Lower East Side activist, has died. Charismatic, brilliant, charming, combative – but she got things done. Housing was built. Neighborhoods saved. People were brought together in common cause. One of the greatest of New Yorkers. pic.twitter.com/ThXdIWu7Vf
We were deeply saddened by the passing of Frances Goldin this weekend. She was a giant-slayer, @CooperSq co-founder, social justice fighter, preservationist, and passionate community leader. Read our past birthday tribute, incl her wonderful oral history: https://t.co/RMCWWukAympic.twitter.com/3Jz6v1rr0q
My former boss Frances Goldin passed away over the weekend. She was a literary agent and activist who dyed her hair with Manic Panic at the age of 95. A true legend. I feel so lucky she was in my life. The city won't be the same without her. https://t.co/40ro72fSKL
The St. Dymphna's family is mourning the loss of George Eshareturi, a longtime friend and doorman of the bar here on Avenue A between Seventh Street and St. Mark's Place.
He died suddenly on Saturday night. Eshareturi, who grew up in the Bronx and played college football at Rutgers, was 36.
Several people have left flowers and candles in a makeshift memorial on the bar's step...
The bar's ownership also established a GoFundMe campaign for George's family. Earlier this week, George's father died from complications due to Alzheimer's.
Per the GoFundMe page: "George will forever be remembered for the kind, charismatic person he was — and the positive energy he brought to every personal interaction."
We heard the sad news that Ali Yasin, the pharmacist and proprietor at New York City Pharmacy on First Avenue, has died. According to a text to customers from his family, Ali died Sunday night from COVID-19-related complications.
[Ali Yasin, left, from 2013]
Several East Village residents and patrons of the shop, located between 12th Street and 13th Street, shared their thoughts about Ali and his family-run business:
I knew Ali for over 30 years — before the last three of his four sons had been born, beginning with his tenure working at the old McKay’s (pre-CVS). He was so very special to me and my family. The neighborhood has lost a real gentleman, fighter and treasure. — Nancy Arons
He and his family are an integral part of our community. The loss of Ali — whose life story represents the best of America— is simply devastating: He was beyond kind, compassionate and generous. He had a huge impact on our East Village world... and we mourn him like a close family member. Our neighborhood will never be the same. — Brian Katz
He always made sure to say hello with a smile and took the time to accommodate each customer. I've been on new and expensive medications and he always went out of his way to find me coupons online or whatever he could do do bring the prices down for me. If an order didn't come in on time he always tried to give me what he could to hold me over. He was a special man and loved by his customers. He will be missed. — Julie Farol
We'll update this post when more information becomes available about his passing.
Updated: Someone has started a modest crowdfunding campaign for his family. Details here.
Miguel Grande, known as the Pasta King at Supper on Second Street, died from COVID-19-related complications this past Friday at Elmhurst Hospital in Queens.
According to the @supper156 account: "He was like a FATHER @suppernyc. He taught everyone how to make pasta. He was always smiling. He was a great person. He was a hard working man and absolutely GREAT FATHER ..."
Grande, who was born in 1968, is survived by his wife, Maribel Luna, and four daughters — Guadalupe, Erika, Yulisa and Emely.
The Supper family, which includes Lil' Frankie's and Frank, has established a fund for Grande's wife and children. You can find that link here.
Per the GoFundMe campaign:
For those of us who have had the pleasure of working with him, no words can encompass how much we will miss him and his smile. Rarely will you meet a man with such dedication and skill and strong work ethics and kindness.
For those of you who have eaten our handmade fresh pastas for the last 19 years, most likely Miguel made them and you had a dish made with love and honesty.
Shirley Campbell, a longtime activist and East Village resident, died on April 12. According to notices from the Cooper Square Mutual Housing Association posted at her former building on Fourth Street, she died from COVID-19 complications.
Campbell, who was born in 1940, had most recently been living at a location of the New Jewish Home.
Per the flyer:
Shirley was a well-known activist on the Lower East Side. She participated in housing and other social justice struggles for more than 30 years. She was an avid tennis enthusiast who loved music, film and art.
Local State Sen. Brad Hoylman offered his condolences...
Deeply saddened to hear of the passing of Shirley Campbell, who gave so much to @CooperSq, the Mutual Housing Association, and the people of Manhattan as an activist.
Free-jazz legend Giuseppi Logan, a onetime East Village resident and fixture in Tompkins Square Park, died Friday at the Lawrence Nursing Care Center in Far Rockaway. According to his friend Matt Lavelle, Logan died from complications of COVID-19. Logan was 84.
Here's a brief overview via an extensive obituary at WBGO:
Logan leaves behind a small body of recorded work, but his standing in the improvised avant-garde is considerable. He emerged just as free jazz was beginning to crest as a movement, and even amidst a crowded field of iconoclasts, he distinguished himself as an original.
An April 2012 feature in The New York Times delved into Logan's mysterious past, in which he disappeared for decades and spent time in a mental institution.
His long journey eventually brought him back to the East Village, where he was a regular in Tompkins Square Park, playing a setlist heavy on "Somewhere Over the Rainbow."
Matt Lavelle, a trumpeter and clarinetist, helped Logan get back into music with his first proper gig in some 40 years at the Bowery Poetry Club on Feb. 17, 2009, per WBGO's report. They also recorded an album for Tompkins Square Records titled "The Giuseppi Logan Quintet."
“The main thing for me, to be honest, was just to make Giuseppi feel good and to give him some money and some CDs to sell in the park,” Josh Rosenthal, founder of Tompkins Square Records, told WBGO. “He made his first record in 45 years, and that was enough. But the record was surprisingly well received.”
[Photo from 2012 by Bobby Williams]
Logan had hip problems, and sometimes got around with the assistance of a walker. The 2012 piece in the Times provided a snapshot of his typical day:
To get from Tompkins Square Park to his room on East Fourth Street, a trip of just a couple of city blocks on foot, Mr. Logan hobbles west to a northbound bus on Avenue A, then gets on a bus at 14th Street that drives east to Avenue D and then turns south. It can take half an hour. Most days, this is the extent of Mr. Logan’s universe.
Through the years, many East Village residents pitched in to help Logan. For instance, in September 2013, residents collected money for Logan after he was jumped on Ninth Street. A resident also gave Logan a spare tenor saxophone.
In 2014, someone stole his saxophone, which left him with a different instrument...
He said that he played the flute in the 1960s in Paris, but was a little rusty. Neighbors eventually secured him another saxophone.
By the fall of 2014, he was no longer spotted in Tompkins Square Park. Several years went by before we learned that he was living in a senior residence in Far Rockaway.
Logan is served by two sons, Jaee and Joe.
Here's a short film from 1966 by Edward English that shows Logan in Tompkins Square Park...
Although he most recently lived in Murray Hill, Webb was well-known in this neighborhood as an everyday presence at Trash & Vaudeville on St. Mark's Place for nearly 18 years.
Webb's passing has prompted many feature obituaries in publications as varied as Vogue to PunkNews.org, a testament to his broad influence and effusive personality.
Word is circulating that Jimmy Webb, a familiar figure in the East Village during his long tenure as the manager and buyer at Trash & Vaudeville, has died of cancer. He was in his early 60s, friends say. (An official statement about his death has not yet been issued.)
Webb, once referred to as "punk rock's unofficial shopkeeper," counted everyone from Iggy Pop and Debbie Harry to Slash and Duff McKagan from Guns N' Roses as friends. Most recently, he owned and operated the rock 'n' roll boutique I Need More on Orchard Street.
“I’m from a hillbilly town upstate where they hunt deer,” he said. “We walked to the creek with Boone’s Farm a friend’s older sister bought us and listened to ‘Walk on the Wild Side’ on a transistor radio.”
Lou Reed’s 1972 ode to hustlers, transsexuals and transsexual hustlers would alter Mr. Webb’s life. “A friend asked, ‘Do you know what it means?’ ” he recalled. “I did without knowing it. I knew I was a boy that had to leave to go somewhere.”
At 16, he ran away to New York with a pillowcase full of clothes. It was 1975. “Coming into Trash and Vaudeville my first time, I knew I’d found a home and I wasn’t crazy,” he said.
At first, Mr. Webb worked as a bar-back in a gay establishment on the Upper West Side at the height of the neighborhood’s Needle Park infamy, attended hair school (he flunked grandiosely) and was a regular at CBGB. He fell into heroin addiction for 20 years and lived in Tompkins Square Park, eventually returning upstate.
“It got worse before it got better,” he said. “They thought I was going to die. After rebuilding my body and spirit, I wanted to go back to the city I loved.”
He started working at his dream destination, Trash & Vaudeville, in 1999, and remained there until the shop relocated from St. Mark's Place to Seventh Street in 2016.
In an interview with EVG prior to the launch, he talked about why he decided to open his shop on the Lower East Side.
I didn’t pick the Lower East Side, or any special place for I Need More. I was very open to where the rock 'n' roll angels were leading me when I finally decided to open a store ... Loving all of New York City I was very open to anywhere in Manhattan. My heart and spirit is in ALL of New York City.
Of course the Lower East Side is a HUGE part of my life since I ran away and arrived in the city in 1975. So I wasn’t the least bit surprised when that second batch of angels ended up leading me right to 75 Orchard Street — 75A in fact! How cool is that? I take that leap of faith and run away to New York City in 1975 as a 16-year-old boy. Decades later another leap of faith leaving everything I know and ending up at 75A Orchard Street.
In late February, the shop hosted a “Footprints in February” celebration, in which Debbie Harry and Iggy Pop put their handprints, footprints and autographs in concrete on the floor of I Need More.
His exuberant, all-cap writing style on Instagram posts captured his love of rock 'n' roll and the people who are part of it ...
[April 13]
