Reminders: The 41st Annual New Year's Day Marathon Reading

[Photo from Jan. 1, 2014 by Ted Roeder via]

The Poetry Project's annual marathon reading is set to start Thursday at 2 p.m. at the St. Mark's Church in-the-Bowery.

Some 140 writers, musicians, dancers and artists will be involved this year.

Here is a list of who is expected to take part:

Adam Fitzgerald, Adeena Karasick, Alan Felsenthal, Alan Gilbert, Alex Cuff, Ali Power, Alli Warren, Andrew Durbin, Anne Waldman w/ Fast Speaking Music, Anselm Berrigan, Ariel Goldberg, Arlo Quint, Avram Fefer, Beth Gill, Bill Kushner, Billy Cancel, Bob Rosenthal, Brandon Brown, Brendan Lorber, Bruce Andrews & Sally Silvers, CAConrad, Callers, Charity Coleman, Charles Bernstein, Christine Kelly, Cliff Fyman, Cori Kresge, Dan Owen, Danniel Schoonebeek, David Berrigan, David Henderson, David Vogen, Dia Felix, Diana Rickard, Don Yorty, Dorothy Friedman August, Dorthea Lasky, Douglas Rothchild, E. Tracy Grinnell, Ed Friedman, Edgar Oliver, Edmund Berrigan, Eileen Myles, Elinor Nauen, Elizabeth Willis, Erica Hunt & Marty Ehrlich, erica kaufman & Matt Longabucco & Nicole Eisenman, Ernie Brooks, Peter Zummo & Bill Ruyle with Walter Baker & Billy Fica, Evan Kennedy, Farnoosh Fathi, Filip Marinovich, Foamola, Georgia Faust, Gina Myers, Grey Vild, Ian Spencer Bell, Janet Hamill & Lost Ceilings, Jason Hwang, JD Samson, Jennifer Bartlett, Jess Fiorini, Jim Behrle, Joanna Koetze, Joel Lewis, John Coletti, John Giorno, John Kruth, John Priest, John S. Hall, Jonas Mekas, Joseph Keckler, Karen Weiser, Karinne Keithley Syers, Katy Bohinc, Katy Lederer, Kiely Sweatt, Kim Rosenfield, Kristin Prevallet, Laura Henriksen, Lee Ann Brown, Lenny Kaye, luciana achugar, Marcella Durand, Maria Acconci, Mariana Ruiz Firmat, Martha King, Maryam Parhizkar, Matthew Shipp, Mel Elberg, Michael Veal, Mike DeCapite, Miriam Atkin, Monica de la Torre, Morgan Parker, Morgan Vo, Nat Otting, Nick Hallett, Nicole Peyrafitte, Nicole Wallace, Niv Acosta, Norman MacAfee, Patricia Spears Jones, Penny Arcade, Peter Bogart Johnson, Philip Glass, Pierre Joris, R. Erica Doyle, Rachel Levitsky & Susan Bee, Rachel Tractenburg, Ray Brown, Rob Fitterman, Samita Sinha, Sara Jane Stoner, Simon Pettet, Simone White, Siobhan Burke, Steve Dalachinsky, Steve Earle, Steven Taylor, Tammy Faye Starlite with Steve Earle, Ted Dodson, Thom Donovan, Thomas Sayer Ellis & James Brandon Lewis, Todd Colby, Tom Savage, Tommy Pico, Tony Towle, Tonya Foster, Tracey McTague, Ursula Eagly, Vito Acconci, Will Edmiston, Xena Semjonova, Yoshiko Chuma, Yuko Otomo, Yvonne Meier and others TBA.

You can buy advance tickets for $20 each here. All proceeds benefit the continued existence of the Poetry Project.

Day of the Dead at St. Mark's Church in-the-Bowery

Photos and text by EVG contributor Stacie Joy

Today is Dia de los Muertos, the Mexican Day of the Dead celebration.



I visited St. Mark’s Church-in-the-Bowery for its Mano a Mano: Mexican Culture without Borders tribute to Mexican actress María Félix and Nobel-prize winning poet Octavio Paz.

There were workshops, songs, and plenty of excellent Mexican food and crafts, as well as an altar for community prayer, where people brought marigolds (traditional flowers or flores para los muerten), photos, candles (belas especial) and notes for those that departed.



The cold and blustery winds carried the scents of the candles, incense, and tacos, and the sounds of the musicians playing Mexican standards welcomed all to this free event.

First stage of portico repair and restoration complete at St. Mark's Church in-the-Bowery

We noticed yesterday that workers removed the scaffolding from outside St. Mark's Church in-the-Bowery on Second Avenue at East 10th Street.

Since April, workers have been repairing and restoring the historic church's portico…





According to Rev. Winnie Varghese, the church's rector, this completes the first stage of the project. The portico floor and accessibility project will likely happen next year.

"We're proud of how much got done — much more than we thought we could do when we started this spring," she told us via Facebook."The portico ironwork is completely restored."

Read more about the restoration, including the funding, over at the church's website here.

And as a bonus, here's maybe the oldest-known photo of the church circa 1865…


[Photo via Roger Jack Walters at Facebook]

Previously on EV Grieve:
Portico restoration begins at St. Mark's Church in-the-Bowery

Repost: When we almost lost St. Mark's Church in-the-Bowery to a fire

The following post first appeared here on July 27, 2012…

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[Photo via]

On July 27, 1978, a fire nearly destroyed the St. Mark's Church in-the-Bowery, long a focal point of the community. At the time of the blaze, workers were nearly done with a $500,000 restoration of the historic church on Second Avenue and East 10th Street.

According to an account by Tom Sotor in the East Side Express:

The fire began when a workman's welding instrument ignited a section of the timber cornice, and from there the blaze spread rapidly. "Smoke was pouring out of the hell tower when we arrived," recalls one of the first firefighters on the scene. "I said to myself, 'This ceiling's going to go.' And sure as hell, there was a partial collapse." The rear section of the 50-foot high peaked roof collapsed a half-hour after the fire began.

The 75 firefighters involved with the three-alarm blaze Were faced with many other problems as well. A six-foot iron fence that surrounded the church and a graveyard on one side prevented the companies from utilizing anything but portable equipment. Consequently, a tower ladder had to be employed to spray the front and rear, while the sides of the church remained practically unassailable.

There was also danger of the 150-foot steeple collapsing. "We kept an eye on the steeple'supports," explains John J. Moffatt, the commander in charge of the fire. "If it fell, we would have had a lot of injuries."

There weren't any reported injuries... though the fire caused major damage to the church, including the loss of the roof and nine of the 23 stained-glass windows.

[Via East Side Express]

The Citizens to Save St Mark's was founded to raise funds for its reconstruction ... supervised by architect Harold Edelman. The restoration was completed in 1986, with new stained-glass windows designed by Edelman, who personally supervised the entire project, according to his obit in the Times from 1999.

And a little snippet of the history via the Church website:

The St. Mark’s Church and its yards are just a few reminders of the once vast “bouwerie,” or Dutch plantation, which Peter Stuyvesant, governor of New Amsterdam purchased in 1651 from the Dutch West India Company. When Stuyvesant died in 1672, his body was interred in a vault under the family chapel he’d had built in 1660. In 1793, Stuyvesant’s great-grandson, Petrus Stuyvesant, donated the chapel property to the Episcopal Church with the stipulation that a new chapel be erected and on April 25, 1795, the cornerstone of St. Mark’s Church in-the-Bowery was laid.

A new weekly flea market outside St. Mark's Church in-the-Bowery

[File photo via Momos/Wikipedia]

From the EVG inbox…

Starting today, Karma Kleaners will be showcasing a limited selection of jewelry, accessories and gift items at the brand new (Saturday) weekly Flea Market run by Metro Festival Productions (who also run the St. Anthony Market in Soho).

If this new venue proves successful Karma Kleaners will expand our merchandising to include crystals, sage kleansing lits, and possibly even some shoes and vintage items.

This Flea Market features several vendors who you may recognize as veterans of the Flea Market circuit in New York City. Come out & show that DOWNTOWN, New York City can still support local artists, small businesses, and a Flea Market!

The market is open 10 a.m. - 7 p.m.

Final curtain coming for the Incubator Arts Project

The nearly 50-year-run of theater is winding down at St. Mark's Church in-the-Bowery. As you may have heard, the Incubator Arts Project is ending its run here.

Here's part of the official explanation from Incubator's organizers:

As of July 1 2014, the Incubator Arts Project will close its doors at St Mark's Church. It has been a long and wonderful ride in support of emerging work, dating back in some form or another to 1992. This room has had a long history of art warriors before then; we were not the first and we dearly hope we won't be the last. We made the decision to end our lease and cease further productions, thereby releasing the future of the room. We wish nothing but wild success for our dear friends at St Mark's, the Poetry Project & Danspace.

According to the Times, the closure is due to "a casualty of static funding and a declining ability to support artists."

In a piece in yesterday's print edition, the Times talked with some of the theater artists whose work had debuted in the church space.

SAM SHEPARD, playwright and actor I was working as a busboy at the Village Gate. Ralph Cook of Theater Genesis heard I was writing stuff similar to plays and wanted to know if I wanted to do something there. It was shocking to be produced; I was writing more or less as a private experience. I don’t know if you want to call it a meditation. Probably not. It was just amazing suddenly to have actors, an audience. And kind of embarrassing, like listening to your own voice on a tape.

The Incubator's final offering, "Katorga," ends Sunday. (There are five performances left starting tomorrow night.)

The Church has leased the second-floor space to the New York Theater Ballet and its ballet school, the Times reported.

Saint Mark's Church Greenmarket reopens today

[Image via]

Let's to to the EVG inbox…

GrowNYC’s Saint Mark’s Church Greenmarket will reopen on Tuesdays beginning today. Located at East 10th Street and 2nd Avenue, this year Mi Ranchito, a New Farmer Development Program participant, will join the market and bring fresh vegetables, Mexican specialty produce and herbs from Monmouth County, New Jersey.

The Saint Mark’s Church Greenmarket, an East Village stand-by for fresh, local foods since 1981, will run until Nov. 25.

Farmers attending:

• Bread Alone Breads and pastries, some certified organic, from Ulster County, N.Y.
• Mi Ranchito Farm Vegetables, Mexican specialty produce, and herbs from Monmouth County, New Jersey
• Kernan Farms Vegetables from Cumberland County, N.Y.
• GrowNYC’s Food Scrap Compost Collection: 8 am – 2 pm
• GrowNYC’s Textile Recycling: 8 am – 4 pm

Hours: Tuesdays 8 a.m. – 6 p.m.

Portico restoration begins at St. Mark's Church in-the-Bowery

The scaffolding went up Monday at St. Mark's Church in-the-Bowery, where workers will be testing and repairing the portico for the next several months.

Here's more via the church's website:

In June of 2012 St. Mark’s won a grant for $135,000 from Partners in Preservation towards the restoration of the historic cast iron Bogardus portico. The portico is the gray “porch” that frames the entrance to St. Mark’s. The portico includes the cast iron frame and pillars and the stone floor.

With the initial grant of $135,000, we have been able to raise some additional funds and plan to raise even more to both restore the floor of the portico and repair the cast iron plinths, pillars and balcony. The image on this page is what they look like now. The stone is worn and chipped, and the iron is rusted and failing in some areas.

In addition, we have received approval from the city of New York’s Landmarks Preservation Commission to develop an accessibility ramp with rails. That sentence should have been longer because getting this approval was an epic journey, but now that we have it, we have another epic journey ahead.

Our next steps are to raise the money and schedule the construction. You will see some construction this Summer (2014) because we have to spend the PiP winnings this Summer, but if we have not raised enough money to do all the work, you will see construction again until we have a restored and accessible entry to the church. The building will be open and functioning during construction.

Meanwhile, here's how you will need to access the church, as this rather awesome sign explains...

Ashes to go on Astor Place

[Photo by Roger Jack Walters via Facebook]

In honor of Ash Wednesday, which marks the start of Lent today, folks from the St. Mark's Church in-the-Bowery are offering ashes to go on Astor Place... it's the first year that they've offered this to-go service...

A fall morning, featuring St. Mark's Church in-the-Bowery

We can't top taking photos of East 10th Street

Reminders: Get your bike blessed tomorrow

Via the EV Grieve inbox... as mentioned last week

What: Saint Mark’s Church-in-the-Bowery will be holding its 1st annual Blessing of the Bicycles. The event is ecumenical and welcoming to all cyclists of all persuasions wanting to take a moment to contemplate a safe cycling season and to get their bikes blessed.

When: Saturday April 20, 2 pm. In case of rain the Blessing will be moved to the same time on April 27.

Who: Open to all ages and cyclists of all skill level and experience.

Why: With expanded bike lanes and a new bike share program about to begin bicycle ridership is set to increase for 2013. New York City is a wonderful place to bicycle; cycling is good exercise and an alternative mood of green transportation. Saint Marks Church-in-the-Bowery is encouraging the community to consider cycling as part of their transportation and recreational options and offering a blessing to cyclists and their bicycles in contemplation of a safe and joyous bicycling season.

On a sunny day...

Late this afternoon outside St. Mark's Church-in-the-Bowery...

Your chance to have your bicycle blessed

Via the EV Grieve inbox...

What: Saint Mark’s Church-in-the-Bowery will be holding its 1st annual Blessing of the Bicycles. The event is ecumenical and welcoming to all cyclists of all persuasions wanting to take a moment to contemplate a safe cycling season and to get their bikes blessed.

When: Saturday April 20, 2 pm. In case of rain the Blessing will be moved to the same time on April 27.

Who: Open to all ages and cyclists of all skill level and experience.

Why: With expanded bike lanes and a new bike share program about to begin bicycle ridership is set to increase for 2013. New York City is a wonderful place to bicycle; cycling is good exercise and an alternative mood of green transportation. Saint Marks Church-in-the-Bowery is encouraging the community to consider cycling as part of their transportation and recreational options and offering a blessing to cyclists and their bicycles in contemplation of a safe and joyous bicycling season.

Good Friday blues explosion at St. Mark's Church-in-the-Bowery

From the EV Grieve inbox...

Tony Award winner and Grammy nominee Ann Duquesnay joins historic St. Mark’s Church-in-the-Bowery to tell Good Friday story through blues music

WHAT: St. Mark’s Church in-the-Bowery provides worshippers with a unique, spiritually moving Good Friday experience with its annual Good Friday Blues. The service uses American blues music to recreate the Passion story of Jesus. Framed by powerfully rendered blues and gospel music, Good Friday Blues tells the story of the betrayal and death of Jesus as written in the Gospel of John.

WHEN and WHERE: Friday, March 29 from noon to 3 p.m. at St. Mark’s Church in-the-Bowery, located at Second Avenue and East Tenth Street.

This year’s performance marks the 12th year of this liturgy, a collaboration between The Right Reverend Catherine S. Roskam, Bishop Suffragan of New York; Otis, and the St. Mark’s Choir.

WHO:Duquesnay and composer-guitarist Ana Hernandez will join the talents of the St. Mark’s Choir and the Good Friday Blues Band. Liturgy dancers include Dawn Crandell and a dancer from the Vissi Dance Theater. Co-narrating the Passion are Vinie Burrows and Amelia V. Anderson. Leading insightful and thought-provoking meditations throughout the service will be the Rector of St. Mark’s, The Rev. Winnie Varghese and The Rev. Richard Witt and Nell Gibson.

And now, a 6-second clip of a snow blower for people who like 6-second clips of a snow blower

St Marks's Church-in-the-Bowery post fake blizzard. #EastVillage vine.co/v/bvaHh7BL27r

— evgrieve (@evgrieve) February 9, 2013

Thanksgiving for Sandy Survivors

Volunteers are at St. Mark's Church in-the-Bowery preparing for the free Thanksgiving meal for people displaced by Superstorm Sandy... 1-4 today...

Per @AMDuross on Twitter — 11am lots of people from EV and other neighborhoods rolling in with donations. Smells amazing.

A Thanksgiving meal for Sandy survivors at St. Mark's Church in-the-Bowery

A group of local residents are teaming up with Jessica Alfreds Homemade to organize a Thanksgiving Dinner for people who have been affected by Hurricane Sandy ... and won't have the ability to cook their own Thanksgiving dinners due to a lack of power, gas ... or inability to get into their homes in the East Village/Lower East Side.

From the EV Grieve inbox...

Date: Thanksgiving

Time: 1-4 p.m. (or until the food is gone)

Location: St. Mark's Church in-the-Bowery, Second Avenue at East 10th Street

If you are willing to roll up your sleeves, donate, connect us to people/companies that can provide us with what we need, or help spread the word all is welcome and appreciated. Please click here to find out more about Thanksgiving for Sandy Survivors.

[EVG file photo]

St. Mark’s Church-in-the-Bowery to install first female Rector

From the EV Grieve inbox Monday...

St. Mark’s Church-in-the-Bowery, one of New York’s most historic Episcopal churches, will install The Rev. Winnie Varghese as Rector at a special service at 11 a.m. Saturday, Oct. 20. The Rt. Rev. Barbara C, Harris, the first woman ordained bishop in the world-wide Anglican Communion, will preach and The Rt. Rev. Andrew M.L. Dietsche, Bishop Coadjutor of New York will preside.

Varghese will be the church’s first Rector in 23 years — and the church’s first female rector in its history. The church, which has design contributions from a long line of notable architects, has been the site of continuous Christian worship for more than 350 years and is New York's oldest site of continuous religious practice.

Varghese joined St. Mark’s in 2009 as the pastor and priest-in-charge. Under her leadership, the church has experienced rapid growth, even as studies show that religious affiliation is falling.

Recently, Varghese was chosen to visit Derby, England, and Mumbai, India as part of an 8-member team from the New York Diocese. As part of the team, Varghese was tasked with understanding how specific cultural, political and social issues affect each diocese to help steer future church leadership. In recent years, Varghese was also asked to present at a conference for Christians working with people living with HIV/AIDS in Chennai, which explored a Christian perspective on sexual minorities.

[Updated] East 10th Street Block Fair today

[Bobby Williams]

A much better street fair.

Updated:

A few photos from the Block Fair via Bobby Williams...